'  EXJJBKB  UNIVERSI 1Y  OF  CALIFORNIA 


JOHN  HENRY  NASH  LIBRARY 

<8>  SAN  FRANCISCO 

PRESENTED  TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


ROBERT  GORDON  SPRQUL,  PRESIDENT. 


MR.ANDMR5.MILTON  S.RAV 
CECILY,  VIRGINIA  AND  ROSALYN  RAY 

AND  THE 

RAY  OIL  BURNEROOMPANY 


(BRUCE — Typographer).  NORTON  (CHARLES  ELIOT).  Henry 
Wadsworth  Longfellow.  A  Sketch  of  His  Life.  Together  with  Long- 
ellow's  Chief  Autobiographical  Poems.  8vo,  boards,  uncut.  With  cloth 
wrapper.  Boston,  1907 

Evidently  a  variant  of  WARDE,  No.  77  as  the  two  portraits  he  calls  for  are  not 
present  and  the  limitation  notice  reads, — "Copy  No.  222  presented  to  Herman  A. 
Fajen  with  the  compliments  of  Houghlon,  Mifflin  Company  in  Commemoration  of 
he  One  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Birth  of  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 
February  27,  1007."  Printed  in  Caslon  type. 


HENRY   WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW 


COPY  NO. 
PRESENTED   TO 


/ 

\ 

WITH   THE   COMPLIMENTS   OF 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND    COMPANY 

IN   COMMEMORATION   OF  THE 
ONE   HUNDREDTH   ANNIVERSARY 

OF  THE   BIRTH    OF 
HENRY  WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW 

FEBRUARY  27,  1907 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW 

A  SKETCH   OF  HIS  LIFE 
BY   CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND    COMPANY 

MDCCCCVII 


COPYRIGHT   1906  BY   CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


NOTE 

The  commemoration,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Historical  Society,  on  the  %lth  of  February,  1907, 
of  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  Longfellow's  birth- 
day, accounts  for  the  character  of  this  little  volume.  Be- 
sides the  sketch  of  the  life  of  the  Poet,  it  contains  most 
of  those  of  his  shorter  poems  which  are  referred  to  in  the 
narrative,  and  also  those  which  have  a  distinctly  auto- 
biographical character,  and  those  which  relate  to  his 
special  friends  and  to  the  places  of  his  birth  and  abode. 
Thus,  the  little  book  gives  the  story  of  the  Poet's  life 
briefly  narrated  in  prose  by  a  friend,  and  partially  re- 
corded in  verse  by  himself. 


CONTENTS 

HENRY    WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW: 

A   SKETCH    OF   HIS   LIFE        .       .       .       .  1 

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   POEMS 

THE  BATTLE  OF  LOVELI/S  POND    (1820)         .            .  43 

PRELUDE  TO  VOICES  OF  THE  NIGHT  (1839)    .               .  44 

A  PSALM  OF  LIFE   (1838) 49 

THE  WRECK  OF  THE  HESPERUS   (1839)     .  .  .50 

THE  VILLAGE  BLACKSMITH    (1839)           ...  54 
TO  THE  RIVER  CHARLES   (1841)           .                      .            .56 

THE  BRIDGE   (1845) 58 

THE  ROPEWALK   (1854) 61 

A  GLEAM  OF  SUNSHINE   (1846)     .             .            .            .  63 

TO  A  CHILD   (1845) 66 

THE  OPEN  WINDOW   (1848)  .           .            .            .            .  73 

IN  THE  CHURCHYARD  AT  CAMBRIDGE   (1851)     .             .  74 

THE  BURIAL  OF  THE  POET   (1879)           <           .            .  75 
THE  TWO  ANGELS   (1855)            .            .            .            .            .76 

RESIGNATION   (1848) 78 

DEDICATION   TO  "SEASIDE  AND  FIRESIDE"    (1849)  80 

MY  LOST  YOUTH   (1855) 82 

[    vii    ] 


CONTENTS 

THE  FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY  OF  AGASSIZ  (1857)    .  .      86 

HAWTHORNE  (1864)     .                .  .        .        87 

THREE  FRIENDS  OF  MINE  (1874)     .  .        .        .89 

THE  HERONS  OF  ELMWOOD  (1876)  .        .        .        92 

THE  CHILDREN'S  HOUR  (1859)        .  .        .        .94 

TRAVELS  BY  THE  FIRESIDE    (1874)         .  .  .  96 

AMALFI    (1875)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .97 

CASTLES  IN  SPAIN    (1877) 101 

FROM  MY  ARM-CHAIR    (1879)  ....    104 

POSSIBILITIES   (1882)  .  .  .  .  .  .107 

THE  CROSS  OF  SNOW   (1879) 107 

PALINGENESIS    (1864) 108 

MORITURI  SALUTAMUS   (1874)  .  .  .  .111 


HENRY  WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW 
A   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW 


AT  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
New  England  was  a  good  land  in  which  to  be 
born.  It  was  still  sparsely  settled.  There  were 
no  large  towns.  Boston,  the  largest,  had  scarcely 
twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants.  The  people 
were  homogeneous,  of  unmixed  English  stock. 
They  were  mainly  farmers  or  seamen.  They 
were  intelligent,  industrious,  and  religious. 
There  was  great  equality  of  condition,  none 
were  very  rich,  none  very  poor.  Everybody 
was  well  off,  for  the  poorest  were  free  from 
the  fear  of  oppression  or  starvation.  The  re- 
lations between  man  and  man  were  natural 
and  friendly.  The  general  habits  of  life  were 
simple  and  frugal;  but  even  in  the  smaller 
towns  there  were  often  a  few  families  which 
maintained  a  traditional  comparatively  high 
standard  of  refinement,  of  intellectual  culture, 
and  of  moderate  though  genuine  elegance. 

There  was  never  a  more  truly  democratic 
community,  nor  one  in  which  the  advantages 


LONGFELLOW 

and  opportunities  of  a  society  based  upon 
democratic  principles  were  more  fully  and 
freely  enjoyed.  Its  interests  were,  indeed, 
comparatively  narrow,  for  it  had  small  share 
in  the  great  life  of  the  world,  it  had  little  con- 
sciousness of  relation  to  the  historic  past  even 
of  its  own  race,  and  it  seemed  to  have  in- 
herited few  of  its  burdens.  It  had  separated 
itself  from  the  Old  World,  and  was  possessed 
with  the  spirit  of  its  own  independence.  It 
was  full  of  self-confidence,  and  looked  forward 
into  the  future  with  an  unbounded  hope,  which 
appeared  even  to  the  wisest  not  an  illusion,  but 
to  rest  on  a  solid  foundation  of  reason.  Here 
men  held  possession  of  a  field  in  which  to  show 
what  they  could  do  unhampered  by  hereditary 
prescriptions  and  privileges,  and  here,  in  New 
England  especially,  the  new  order  of  society, 
based  on  justice  and  liberty,  not  only  gave 
promise  of  fairer  results  than  had  ever  before 
been  achieved,  but  already  exhibited  actual 
results  in  blessings  which  seemed  but  a  fore- 
taste of  those  which  might  be  legitimately 
anticipated.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  whole 
temper  of  the  community  became  optimistic 
[  2  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

and  kindly;  that  the  severities  of  the  Calvin- 
istie  creed  of  earlier  days  were  relaxed;  and 
that  both  this  world  and  the  next  took  on  a 
Utopian  aspect. 

The  perils  of  prosperity,  of  unlimited  demo- 
cracy, of  unchecked  immigration,  were  not  fore- 
seen; they  were  gradually  to  manifest  them- 
selves. The  generation  which  grew  up  before 
1830  had  neither  the  experience  nor  the  dread 
of  them. 

This  condition  of  society  in  New  England 
deserves  to  be  set  forth  in  much  greater  detail, 
not  only  as  an  exceptional,  instructive,  and 
interesting  passage  in  the  history  of  mankind, 
but  also  as  accounting  in  large  measure  for 
the  spirit  and  form  of  the  works  of  the  poets 
and  men  of  letters  who  gave  distinction  to  the 
country  in  the  middle  of  the  century.  It  is 
worth  noting  that  all  of  them  were  born  within 
its  first  twenty  years,  and  grew  to  manhood 
before  the  problems  which  now  perplex  us  had 
begun  to  present  themselves  with  the  threaten- 
ings  of  the  Sphinx.1 

1  The  list  with  its  dates  is  curiously  significant:   Emerson,  born 
1803;  Hawthorne,  1804 ;  Longfellow  and  Whittier,  1807 ;  Holmes. 

[    3    ] 


LONGFELLOW 

One  of  the  pleasantest  towns  in  New  Eng- 
land at  this  time  was  Portland,  now  the  chief 
seaport  of  the  State  of  Maine.  It  is  an  old  town 
according  to  the  reckoning  of  the  United  States, 
having  been  first  settled  in  1632;  it  is  old 
enough  to  have  traditions,  and  to  have  known 
many  generations  of  seafaring  men,  and  in 
former  days,  when  its  commerce  was  of  more 
importance  than  it  is  now,  its  people  gained 
some  sense,  such  as  those  of  inland  towns 
seldom  acquire,  of  the  largeness  of  the  world, 
of  the  interest  and  romance  of  foreign  lands, 
and  of  the  mystery  and  perils  of  the  sea.  Here 
on  the  27th  of  February,  1807,  Henry  Wads- 
worth  Longfellow  was  born.  His  parents  were 
of  English  stock,  long  settled  in  America.  His 
father  was  a  lawyer,  a  man  of  pure,  upright 
character,  a  good  heart,  and  an  old-time 
courtesy.  He  became  one  of  the  foremost 
men  in  his  community,  honored  for  his  public 
spirit,  sound  judgment,  integrity,  and  ability. 

1809  ;  Lowell,  1819.  The  general  spirit  and  optimistic  disposition  of 
the  land  had  already  found  expression  in  Irving,  born  1783,  and  in 
Channing  (1780),  but  the  original  characteristic  New  England  quality, 
the  distinctive  temper  of  a  cultivated  democracy,  waited  for  its  full 
expression  for  the  men  of  the  succeeding  generation. 

[    4     ] 


LONGFELLOW 

"In  his  family,"  wrote  his  youngest  son,  "he 
was  at  once  kind  and  strict,  bringing  up  his 
children  in  habits  of  respect  and  obedience, 
of  unselfishness,  the  dread  of  debt,  and  the 
faithful  performance  of  duty."1  The  boy's 
mother  must  have  been  a  woman  of  uncom- 
mon sweetness  and  charm.  Her  letters,  of 
which  a  few  have  been  preserved,  mainly  to 
her  son,  are  evidences  of  her  tenderness,  re- 
finement, and  culture.  She  was  a  lover  of 
nature,  and  of  the  poets;  she  had  a  sincere 
and  cheerful  piety;  she  was  a  kind  neighbor 
and  a  devoted  mother.  Her  household  of  eight 
children,  four  brothers  and  four  sisters,  was  a 
happy  one.  Henry  was  the  second  child. 

To  those  who  have  not  had  the  blessing  of 
knowing  it,  it  may  be  difficult  to  give  the  true 
impression  of  the  pleasantness  and  wholesome- 
ness  of  an  old-time  New  England  home.  There 
has  never  elsewhere  been  anything  exactly  like 
it.  The  natural  relations  shaping  the  society  of 
which  it  was  an  element,  the  absence  of  arti- 

1  I  take  this  sentence  from  the  excellent  Life  of  the  poet  by  his 
brother,  the  late  Rev.  Samuel  Longfellow.  My  obligations  to  this 
authoritative  biography  are  constant  throughout  the  following  sketch. 

[    5    ] 


LONGFELLOW 

ficial  distinctions,  the  universal  sense  of  inde- 
pendence and  ease,  the  common  kindliness  and 
good-nature  which  resulted  from  the  general 
well-being,  all  affected  the  intimate  spirit  of 
the  household.  Domestic  virtues  flourish  in 
such  an  atmosphere.  The  union  of  simplicity 
in  modes  of  living  and  thinking  with  respect 
and  desire  for  culture  showed  itself  in  a  love 
of  reading,  by  which  the  narrow  outlook  of 
a  somewhat  primitive  and  provincial  view  of 
the  world  was  modified  and  enlarged.  It  was 
through  books  that  the  household  mainly  felt 
its  connection  with  the  wide  life  of  mankind, 
with  the  poetic  and  historic  past.  The  books 
were  indeed  comparatively  few,  but  they  were 
for  the  most  part  those  of  which  the  worth 
had  been  tested  by  the  approval  of  many  gen- 
erations. Music,  too,  of  a  simple  kind  was  one 
of  the  common  domestic  pleasures.  Manners 
were  carefully  regarded;  and  though  there  was 
little  of  the  finer  social  art,  there  was  often 
much  good  talk  to  be  heard  around  the  hospi- 
table table,  or  by  the  winter-evening  fireside. 
In  fact,  the  old  New  England  home  at  its  best 
was  a  happy  place,  with  a  special,  if  slender, 


LONGFELLOW 

charm  and  grace  of  its  own.  There  was,  in- 
deed, a  lack  of  richness  in  the  intellectual  no 
less  than  in  the  material  life,  and  seldom  a 
sufficient  variety  of  condition,  or  difficulty  of 
circumstance,  or  collision  of  interests  to  de- 
velop the  finer  resources  of  the  mind.  The 
land  had  not  been  settled  long  enough  to  pos- 
sess a  soil  —  the  product  of  the  lives  of  count- 
less generations  —  of  depth  enough  to  afford 
nourishment  to  the  deepest  reaching  roots  of 
the  imagination  and  intelligence. 

Such  a  home  as  I  have  described  was  that  of 
the  Longfellows,  and  its  influence  was  strong 
for  good  on  a  sensitive  nature  like  that  of  the 
boy  Henry.  He  was  a  bright,  pleasant  boy, 
active,  industrious,  ardent,  and  according  to 
his  mother's  report  "remarkably  solicitous 
always  to  do  right."  When  he  was  five  years 
old  he  was  sent  to  a  day-school,  close  by  his 
home,  and  a  certificate  from  his  master  has 
been  preserved,  given  him  when  he  was  not 
much  over  six,  which  shows  how  early  the  little 
boy  began  to  be  what  he  always  remained: 
"Master  Henry  Longfellow  is  one  of  the  best 
boys  we  have  in  school.  He  spells  and  reads 

t  t  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

very  well.  He  also  can  add  and  multiply  num- 
bers. His  conduct  last  quarter  was  very  correct 
and  amiable.  June  30,  1813." 

His  taste  for  reading  was  early  manifest.  He 
took  delight  in  "Don  Quixote"  and  in  Ossian, 
but,  as  he  himself  has  recorded,  the  first  book 
which  "fascinated  his  imagination,  and  ex- 
cited and  satisfied  the  desires  of  his  mind," 
was  the  "Sketch-Book"  of  Washington  Irving. 
"I  was  a  schoolboy  when  it  was  published" 
[the  first  number  appeared  in  1819],  "and  read 
each  succeeding  number  with  ever  increasing 
wonder  and  delight."  He  had  himself  already 
begun  writing,  and  when  he  was  thirteen  years 
old  some  verses  of  his  were  printed  in  the 
local  newspaper.  They  were  of  no  special 
promise,  but  they  were  not  destitute  of  merit 
in  versification,  and  showed  that  the  boy  had 
been  reading  Campbell  and  Scott.  With  these 
verses  his  literary  life  began. 

In  1822  he  was  sent  to  Bowdoin  College 
at  Brunswick,  then,  as  now,  the  chief  college 
in  Maine,  about  thirty  miles  from  Portland. 
He  entered  it  as  a  Sophomore,  in  a  class  of 
which  Hawthorne  was  a  member.  His  college 
I  8  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

years  were  well  spent;  it  was  a  period  of  rapid 
maturing  both  of  character  and  of  powers. 
Longfellow,  as  he  had  been  at  school,  so  here 
was  "one  of  the  best  boys."  He  had  a  charm- 
ing social  disposition,  and  was  a  general  fa- 
vorite; but,  while  he  enjoyed  the  companion- 
ship of  his  fellows,  he  had  principles  strong 
enough  to  resist  the  temptations  of  college 
life.  He  was  a  faithful  and  industrious  student; 
he  became  a  wide  reader;  and  he  wrote  much 
prose  and  verse,  some  of  which  found  accept- 
ance in  the  "  United  States  Literary  Gazette," 
published  in  Boston,  to  which  he  became, 
during  his  last  year  in  college,  a  frequent  con- 
tributor. The  poems  are  mostly  trial  pieces. 
They  show  a  singularly  sweet  and  pure  nature; 
but  the  poet  had  not  yet  found  his  true  voice, 
and  what  he  wrote  was  often  in  the  mood  and 
with  the  tone  of  elder  poets,  especially  of 
Bryant,  whose  grave  and  moral  verse,  the 
expression  of  his  New  England  temperament, 
exercised  a  strong  and  acknowledged  influence 
upon  his  younger  contemporary.  The  best 
poetic  fruit  of  his  college  years  was  not  ga- 
thered till  fifty  years  later,  when,  on  the  anni- 
[  9  1 


LONGFELLOW 

versary  of  the  graduation  of  his  Class,  Long- 
fellow read  at  Bowdoin  his  beautiful  and 
characteristic  poem  entitled  Morituri  Saluta- 
mus,  in  which,  beginning  with  tender  recol- 
lections of  the  days  of  youth,  he  went  on  with 
a  profoundly  sweet  and  touching  survey  of 
life,  and  closed  with  a  noble  assertion  of  the 
significance  and  opportunities  of  old  age. 

Before  he  left  college  he  had  come  to  a 
clear  recognition  of  his  true  vocation  in  life. 
"The  fact  is,"  he  wrote  to  his  father,  "the 
fact  is,  I  most  eagerly  aspire  after  future 
eminence  in  literature.  .  .  .  Nature  has  given 
me  a  very  strong  predilection  for  literary  pur- 
suits." And  in  this  he  was  not  making  the 
mistake  which  young  men  so  often  make,  of 
supposing  their  powers  to  justify  their  pre- 
dilection. He  had  a  right  to  confidence  in  his 
gifts,  and  Fortune  smiled  upon  him  with  sur- 
prising graciousness.  At  the  very  moment  of 
his  graduation,  in  1825,  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees of  the  college  determined  to  establish  a 
Professorship  of  Modern  Languages.  The  re- 
sources of  the  college  were  narrow,  and  the 
salary  which  it  was  proposed  to  attach  to  the 
[  10  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

professorship  was  too  small  to  allow  the  hope 
that  a  scholar  of  established  repute  could  be 
induced  to  take  the  chair.  "  The  eyes  of  the 
trustees,"  says  his  brother,  "turned  upon 
the  young  graduate,  whose  literary  tastes  and 
attainments  had  attracted  their  attention  and 
gained  him  reputation."  His  character,  no 
less  than  his  attainments,  inspired  confidence 
in  his  ability,  after  due  preparation,  to  fill 
such  a  position  with  credit,  and  an  informal 
proposal  was  made  to  him  that  he  should  visit 
Europe  for  a  period  of  preparatory  study,  with 
the  understanding  that  on  his  return  he  should 
be  appointed  to  the  professorship.  There  could 
be  no  stronger  evidence  of  the  impression 
which,  though  not  yet  nineteen  years  old,  he 
had  already  made  as  a  youth,  not  merely  of 
uncommon  promise,  but  of  still  more  uncom- 
mon desert. 

The  proposal  was  accepted  with  delight. 
Nothing  could  have  better  favored  his  desires 
and  his  projects.  The  opportunity  of  study  in 
Europe  was  an  unhoped-for  felicity,  and  he 
embraced  it  with  a  serious  resolve  to  get  from 
it  the  best  that  it  could  give.  He  left  home 


LONGFELLOW 

in  May,  1826,  and   he  remained  abroad  till 
July,  1829. 

Europe  was  then  much  more  remote  from 
America  than  it  is  to-day.  It  was  a  month  or 
more  distant,  and  it  was  a  much  fresher  land 
then  than  now  to  a  young  American.  Its 
paths  had  not  yet  been  made  dusty  by  Ameri- 
can feet.  In  outward  aspect,  in  social  order, 
in  standards  of  life,  in  modes  of  thought,  the 
Old  and  the  New  World  were  far  more  dis- 
tinct than  they  have  since  become.  The  great 
advantage  which  an  American  still  derives 
from  a  visit  to  Europe,  beside  the  enlarging 
of  his  experience  of  life,  is  the  quickening  of 
his  imagination  by  the  awakening  of  the  sense 
of  his  relation  to  the  long  historic  life  of  his 
race.  Longfellow's  youth  and  poetic  tempera- 
ment, as  well  as  the  literary  culture  which  he 
had  already  acquired,  made  him  peculiarly 
sensible  to  the  strong  and  novel  influence  of  a 
residence  in  foreign  lands.  His  first  months 
abroad  were  spent  in  France,  and  thence  he 
went  in  succession  to  Spain,  Italy,  and  Ger- 
many, ending  his  period  of  absence  with  a 
brief  stay  in  England.  Everywhere  on  the  Con- 
[  12  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

tinent  he  devoted  himself  to  acquiring  the 
languages  of  the  different  countries  which  he 
visited,  and  to  studying  their  literature.  He 
had  an  exceptional  facility  in  learning  a  new 
language,  and  his  industry  was  great.  He 
mastered  three  of  the  four  great  foreign  lan- 
guages so  thoroughly  as  to  speak  them  with 
facility  and  correctness,  and  to  write  them 
with  comparative  ease,  and  he  returned  to 
America  fitted  to  discharge  competently  the 
duties  of  the  professorship  to  which  he  had 
been  called.  But  Europe  had  done  much  more 
for  him  than  merely  make  him  an  accom- 
plished scholar.  It  had  enlarged  his  view  of 
Me,  fertilized  his  mind,  and  given  him  a  social 
cultivation  which  he  could  not  have  gained  at 
home.  These  three  years  abroad  did  much 
to  give  color  to  his  future. 

To  come  back  from  the  exciting  interests 
and  delights  of  Paris,  Madrid,  and  Rome, 
and  from  the  deep  sources  of  intellectual  life 
at  a  German  university,  to  the  monotonous 
routine  of  a  teacher's  existence  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  a  small  country  college,  was 
a  somewhat  sharp  test  of  character.  Long- 
[  13  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

fellow  stood  it  well,  for  his  rare  gifts  and  ac- 
complishments rested  upon  a  solid  basis  of 
manliness  and  common  sense,  and  his  long 
residence  abroad  had  not  weakened  his  love 
of  home.  He  entered  on  his  new  duties  with 
zest,  and  with  a  high  estimate  of  the  respon- 
sibilities and  opportunities  of  his  profession  as 
teacher.  In  a  letter  written  in  1830,  —  he  was 
then  twenty-three  years  old, — he  describes  the 
course  of  his  life:  "I  rise  at  six  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  hear  a  French  recitation  immediately. 
At  seven  I  breakfast  and  am  then  master  of 
my  time  till  eleven,  when  I  hear  a  Spanish 
lesson.  After  that  I  take  a  lunch,  and  at 
twelve  I  go  into  the  library  "  [he  was  the  act- 
ing librarian  of  the  college],  "where  I  remain 
till  one.  I  am  then  at  leisure  for  the  after- 
noon till  five,  when  I  have  a  French  recitation. 
At  six  I  take  coffee,  then  walk  and  visit  friends 
till  nine;  study  till  twelve,  and  sleep  till  six, 
when  I  begin  the  same  round  again.  Such  is 
the  daily  routine  of  my  life.  The  intervals  of 
college  duty  I  fill  up  with  my  own  studies. 
Last  term  I  was  publishing  text-books  for  the 
use  of  my  pupils,  in  whom  I  take  a  deep  in- 
[  14  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

terest.  This  term  I  am  writing  a  course  of 
lectures  on  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  litera- 
tures. .  .  .  I  am  delighted  more  and  more  with 
the  profession  I  have  embraced.  .  .  .  Since  my 
return  I  have  written  one  piece  of  poetry,  but 
have  not  published  a  line.  ...  If  I  ever  pub- 
lish a  volume  it  will  be  many  years  first." 

It  was,  indeed,  nearly  ten  years  before  he 
published  his  first  slender  volume  of  collected 
poems.  But  these  ten  years  were  well  filled 
with  literary  work,  mainly  the  result  of  his 
travel  and  his  professional  studies.  He  wrote 
numerous  articles  upon  topics  of  mediaeval 
and  modern  literature;  he  made  many  poeti- 
cal translations;  he  published  in  1833  a  series 
of  sketches  of  tales  and  literary  essays  under 
the  title  of  "Outre  Mer,"  and  six  years  later, 
after  a  second  visit  to  Europe,  appeared 
"Hyperion,"  in  which  this  later  experience  of 
travel  was  presented  in  a  more  consecutive 
form  than  that  of  his  earlier  book,  and  with 
a  deeper  interest  from  the  thread  of  romance 
connecting  its  various  episodes,  as  well  as 
from  its  riper  expression  of  more  personal  and 
intimate  experience. 

[    15    ] 


LONGFELLOW 

All  this  work  has  many  excellent  qualities; 
it  is  the  writing  of  a  cultivated  man  of  letters, 
possessed  of  poetic  sensibility,  of  a  somewhat 
romantic  vein  of  sentiment,  and  of  a  sweet 
nature,  refined,  gentle,  and  of  high  aims.  It 
is  essentially  the  work  of  a  man  of  letters, 
who  sees  life  not  directly,  but  rather  as  it 
comes  reflected  to  him  through  books  and 
colored  by  literary  associations.  "Outre  Mer" 
is  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  "  Sketch-Book;  " 
"Hyperion"  traces  back  to  Jean  Paul.  The 
books  have  not  the  charm  of  primitive  nature, 
but  they  are  full  of  the  pleasantness  of  the 
garden,  with  its  abundance  of  sweet-scented 
herbs  and  exotic  flowers. 

It  was  not  strange  that  Longfellow  was  slow 
in  discovering  his  native  vein  of  poetry  and 
in  trusting  to  it.  The  intellectual  conditions 
of  America  did  not  give  self-confidence  to  her 
authors,  and  in  his  case  the  opening  to  him, 
at  the  most  sensitive  period  of  youth,  of  the 
treasures  of  the  Continental  literatures,  trea- 
sures much  less  familiar  eighty  years  ago  than 
now,  the  excitement  of  what  was  practically 
literary  discovery,  and  the  attractiveness  of  the 


LONGFELLOW 

form  no  less  than  of  the  substance  of  this 
newly  revealed  art,  —  all  tended  at  first  to 
choke  the  natural  current  of  his  poetic  vein, 
and  to  substitute  for  the  direct  expression  of 
himself  the  reproduction  by  transfusion  or 
translation  of  what  was  so  delightful  to  him. 
During  these  years,  from  1827  to  1839,  his 
life  had  had  a  varied  course.  In  1831  he  had 
been  married  with  every  promise  of  happiness 
to  Miss  Potter  of  Portland.  In  1834,  having 
established  his  reputation  as  an  accomplished 
scholar  and  teacher,  he  was  invited  to  succeed 
Mr.  Ticknor,  as  Professor  of  Belles-Lettres 
at  Harvard  College.  He  accepted  with  satis- 
faction the  larger  opportunities  for  study  and 
the  wider  social  relations  which  a  position 
at  the  oldest  and  best  equipped  of  American 
colleges  afforded;  but  before  entering  upon 
his  new  duties,  he  went  again  to  Europe  for 
further  study,  especially  of  the  northern  lan- 
guages and  literature.  He  was  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  but  they  had  been  abroad  hardly 
more  than  six  months  before  her  health  failed, 
and  she  died  at  Rotterdam,  in  December, 
1835.  Longfellow  returned  home  in  the 
[  17  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

autumn  of  1836,  and  in  December  took  up  his 
residence  in  Cambridge,  where  his  home  was 
thenceforth  to  be  till  the  end  of  life,  a  period  of 
more  than  forty-five  years. 

Cambridge  in  1836  was  a  pleasant  little 
town,  some  of  the  characteristics  of  which 
Mr.  Lowell  has  preserved  in  his  picturesque 
essay,  "Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago."  For 
so  small  a  town  it  contained  an  unusual  num- 
ber of  people  of  considerable  intellectual  and 
more  or  less  social  culture  whom  the  college 
brought  together  upon  easy  terms.  It  was  a 
very  simple  society,  conservative  in  its  general 
spirit,  but  liberalized  by  its  neighborhood  to 
Boston,  which  had  long  possessed  an  intellect- 
ual leadership  among  the  cities  of  America,  and 
which,  as  it  grew  in  numbers  and  in  wealth,  did 
not  lose  its  traditional  hospitality  to  thought. 
The  moment  was  one  of  moral  and  mental 
ferment.  The  anti-slavery  campaign  had  be- 
gun in  earnest,  and  the  so-called  "transcen- 
dental" movement,  to  which  Emerson  was  be- 
ginning to  give  its  best  direction,  was  already, 
in  spite  of  many  extravagances  and  absurdi- 
ties, exercising  a  potent  influence  of  intellectual 
[  18  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

emancipation.  Longfellow  at  once  found  him- 
self at  home  in  these  wider  conditions  than 
Bowdoin  had  afforded.  He  sympathized  with 
the  prevailing  liberal  temper  of  his  own  gen- 
eration, but  he  took  no  leading  part  in  the  de- 
bates of  the  times.  His  disposition  had  nothing 
controversial  in  it.  His  life  soon  settled  into  a 
pleasant  regularity.  His  college  duties  were 
arduous  and  often  irksome,  but  they  left  him 
leisure  for  his  favorite  studies,  and  for  the  en- 
joyment of  friendly  intercourse. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  my  own  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Longfellow  began.  He  was  then 
twenty-nine  years  old,  and  I  was  a  boy  some- 
what more  than  twenty  years  younger.  But 
from  the  first  he  was  a  most  kind  and  pleasant 
friend  to  me.  He  was  a  frequent  and  familiar 
visitor  at  my  father's  house,  and  the  younger 
members  of  the  family  were  as  glad  as  their 
elders  to  see  him.  He  entered  into  the  interests 
of  our  lives  and  added  to  their  pleasures.  I 
should  not  speak  of  this  were  it  not  for  the  il- 
lustration it  affords  of  his  nature,  and  of  the 
affection  in  which  he  was  held  by  all,  old  or 
young,  with  whom  he  was  brought  into  famil- 
[  19  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

iar  relation.  As  life  went  on  his  kindness  never 
changed,  and  now,  almost  twenty-five  years 
after  his  death,  I  look  back  on  the  friendship 
which  he  gave  to  me  for  forty-five  years  as 
one  of  their  great  blessings.  It  still  is  one  of 
the  lights  of  life.  I  wish  I  could  give  to  others 
the  true  image  of  him  which  remains  in  my 
heart.  It  may  be  learned  from  his  own  sweet- 
est verse,  for  no  poet  ever  wrote  with  more 
unconscious  and  complete  sincerity  of  self- 
expression. 

No  profession  is  at  once  more  depressing 
and  more  stimulating  than  that  of  the  teacher 
of  youth  just  entering  on  manhood.  The  more 
keenly  he  sympathizes  with  them  and  desires 
to  aid  them,  the  more  keenly  he  feels  how  far 
the  best  that  he  can  do  for  them  falls  short  of 
their  needs  and  of  his  own  ideal  of  service.  He 
would  fain  save  them  from  errors  of  which  by 
experience  he  knows  the  harm,  would  fain  not 
only  supply  them  with  learning,  but  inspire 
them  with  a  love  of  it  by  instructing  them  in 
its  right  use  for  the  building  of  character,  as 
well  as  for  the  enlargement  of  those  mental 
resources  which  contribute  to  the  permanent 


LONGFELLOW 

enjoyment  and  utility  of  life.  Longfellow's  ex- 
ample wrought  upon  his  pupils  no  less  than 
his  words.  He  stood  before  them  as  the  pat- 
tern of  an  accomplished  man  of  letters,  who 
exhibited  in  his  life  the  worth  of  his  own 
instructions. 

His  college  duties,  regular  and  constant  as 
they  were,  did  not  prevent  him  from  carrying 
on  literary  work  of  his  own.  In  the  summer 
of  1839,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  "Hy- 
perion," begun  a  year  before,  was  completed 
and  published.  It  was  received  with  favor;  it 
appealed  to  the  romantic  sentiment  of  youth, 
and  it  gratified  the  taste,  natural  to  American 
readers,  for  the  varied  resources  and  the  poetic 
suggestion  of  the  Old  World. 

" Hyperion"  marks  the  close  of  the  first  stage 
of  Longfellow's  intellectual  life,  the  stage  of 
youthful  impressibility  and  experiment,  of 
uncertainty  of  aim,  of  the  control  of  foreign 
influence  on  the  direction  of  his  powers.  The 
foreign  materials  of  his  culture  had  now  been 
assimilated  so  as  to  become  vital  elements  of 
his  genius,  and  the  little  volume  of  poems 
published  in  the  autumn  of  1839  under  the 
[  21  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

title  of  "Voices  of  the  Night"  marks  the 
beginning  of  the  stage  in  which  that  genius 
was  to  find  its  full  and  free  expression.  The 
Prelude  with  which  the  volume  opens  gives 
evidence  that  the  poet  himself  was  conscious 
of  the  change.  He  bids  farewell  to  the  visions 
of  childhood;  no  longer  what  is  external  shall 
be  his  theme,  but,  adopting  the  noble  injunc- 
tion of  Sidney's  Muse,  he  says  to  himself, 
"Look  then  into  thy  heart  and  write,"  and 
thenceforth  he  spoke  to  the  hearts  of  men.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  he  had  been  so  long 
in  acquiring  trust  in  his  own  powers.  His 
modesty,  his  admiration  for  the  work  of  con- 
temporary poets  in  Europe,  —  Goethe,  Man- 
zoni,  Victor  Hugo,  —  had  made  him  hesitate. 
Moreover,  in  the  life  of  New  England  there 
was  little  to  quicken  the  poetic  imagination; 
its  experience  was  of  homespun  quality,  the 
element  of  passion  was  scanty  in  the  tempera- 
ment of  its  people,  there  was  no  great  oppor- 
tunity in  their  relations  and  habits  for  marked 
variety  of  sentiment  and  emotion.  Our  best 
poetry  had  been  patterned  on  foreign  models. 
Such  fresh  and  original  voices  as  had  tried  to 
[  2*  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

make  themselves  heard,  had  had  for  the  most 
part  but  a  faint  tone,  and  had  been  listened 
to  without  popular  approval.  The  prevailing 
spirit  was  of  critical  distrust  of  native  powers, 
a  spirit  unfavorable  for  the  discovery  of  a  poet 
either  by  himself  or  by  others. 

But  in  "Voices  of  the  Night"  were  poems 
which  appealed  at  once  to  the  consciousness 
of  the  public  as  expressions  of  its  own  hitherto 
unexpressed  interior  moods,  and  dimly  recog- 
nized ideals.  The  "Psalm  of  Life,"  a  voice, 
as  the  poet  called  it,  from  his  inmost  heart, 
proved  to  be  the  voice  of  many  hearts.  It  be- 
came instantly  popular.  Its  moral  lesson,  con- 
veyed in  simple  but  musical  verse,  was  accepted 
by  its  readers  as  the  teaching  of  their  own  ex- 
perience which  they  had  failed  to  formulate 
for  themselves.  It  was  a  help  and  encourage- 
ment to  depressed  souls,  a  stimulus  to  the  am- 
bitious and  the  hopeful.  The  world  cares  more 
for  morality  than  for  poetry,  but  it  likes  to 
have  its  moral  sentiment  expressed  in  poetic 
form.  Perhaps  no  verses  of  the  century  have 
had  wider  acceptance  than  these.  But  it  was 
not  only  their  moral  tone  which  secured  for 
[  23  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

this  and  other  poems  in  the  volume  an  imme- 
diate cordial  reception,  but  also  their  beauty 
of  form.  His  long  preparatory  studies  had 
made  Longfellow  such  a  master  of  versifica- 
tion as  America  had  not  before  known,  and 
his  art  gave  a  rare  charm  to  his  words. 

From  this  time  forth  Longfellow  wrote  lit- 
tle prose  for  publication,  his  only  subsequent 
prose  work  being  the  brief  tale  of  "Kavanagh," 
a  pretty,  semi-romantic,  semi-realistic  story, 
brightened  by  touches  of  humor,  and  suffused 
with  delicate  sentiment.  It  embodied  many 
fancies  and  reflections  which  had  long  been 
gathered  in  -his  note-books  or  loosely  floating 
in  his  brain,  but  it  has  no  great  significance  in 
the  record  of  his  intellectual  life. 

Two  years  after  the  publication  of  the 
"Voices  of  the  Night,"  he  gathered  into  an- 
other volume  the  pieces  which  he  had  written 
in  the  interval,  some  of  which,  such  as  "The 
Wreck  of  the  Hesperus"  and  "The  Village 
Blacksmith,"  became  at  once  and  have  con- 
tinued to  be  favorites  of  the  great  public. 

In  1842  the  regular  current  of  his  life  was 
interrupted  by  a  third  visit  to  Europe,  under- 


LONGFELLOW 

taken  for  the  benefit  of  his  health.  The  sum- 
mer was  spent  at  Marienberg,  near  Boppard 
on  the  Rhine.  While  here  he  made  acquaint- 
ance, which  ripened  into  a  cordial  and  per- 
manent friendship,  with  Ferdinand  Freili- 
grath,  then  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  younger  German  poets.  In  October,  on 
his  way  home,  he  went  to  London,  where  he 
spent  the  last  weeks  of  his  stay  abroad  with 
Dickens,  always  a  most  genial  and  sympa- 
thetic host.  Dickens  was  just  bringing  out 
his  "American  Notes,"  and  Longfellow  wrote 
to  Sumner  of  it,  "  You  will  read  it  with  delight 
and,  for  the  most  part,  approbation.  He  has 
a  grand  chapter  on  Slavery." 

The  topic  was  perilous  for  a  man  of  letters; 
the  debate  upon  it  had  become  too  hot.  Yet 
Longfellow,  on  his  homeward  voyage,  wrote 
a  number  of  poems  on  Slavery,  which  he  pub- 
lished in  a  pamphlet  soon  after  his  return. 
They  brought  upon  him  harsh  denunciation. 
He  was  charged  with  being  an  Abolitionist, 
and  his  popularity  as  a  poet  suffered  diminu- 
tion at  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  slavehold- 
ing  community.  By  these  poems  Longfellow 
[  25  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

had  ranged  himself  in  line  with  his  intimate 
friend,  Charles  Sumner,  then  at  the  beginning 
of  his  great  anti-slavery  career,  and  he  readily 
accepted  such  measure  of  obloquy  and  of  un- 
popularity as  the  taking  of  this  position  might 
bring  to  him. 

In  1843,  the  happiness  of  his  life  was  re- 
newed and  confirmed  by  his  marriage  to  Miss 
Frances  Appleton,  a  woman  worthy  to  be  a 
poet's  wife.  She  had  great  beauty,  and  a  pre- 
sence of  dignity  and  distinction,  the  true  image 
of  a  beautiful  nature.  He  had  met  her  first  in 
Switzerland,  six  years  before,  when  she  was  a 
girl  of  nineteen,  and  something  of  her  as  she 
then  was,  is  embodied  in  the  Mary  Ashburton 
of  "Hyperion."  She  brought  him  abundant 
means  as  well  as  happiness. 

Craigie  House  in  Cambridge,  a  fine  old  colo- 
nial mansion,  which  had  been  Washington's 
headquarters  for  some  months  after  he  took 
command  of  the  Continental  Army  in  1775, 
and  in  which  Longfellow,  almost  ever  since 
his  first  coming  to  Cambridge  had  had  his 
abode,  now  became  their  permanent  home. 
The  traditions,  the  associations,  the  surround- 
[  26  1 


LONGFELLOW 

ings  of  the  house  well  befitted  its  aspect,  while 
the  view  upon  which  it  looked  toward  the 
southwest  across  open  fields  to  the  Charles, 
and  beyond  the  river  and  its  marshes  to  the 
pleasant  hills  of  Brighton  and  Brookline,  af- 
forded it  the  setting  of  an  appropriate  land- 
scape. Thus  fortunate  in  all  externals,  the 
home  within  was  exceptionally  happy.  The 
joys  of  domestic  life,  the  pleasures  of  social 
life,  found  their  pattern  and  example  here. 

The  rare  social  gifts  with  which  Nature  had 
endowed  him,  cultivated  by  his  experience  in 
Europe,  made  Longfellow  a  delightful  host, 
or  guest,  or  companion.  He  possessed  the  first 
requisite  of  all  fine  social  art,  —  a  real  desire 
to  give  pleasure;  he  was  quite  free  from  van- 
ity, and  while  he  was  master  of  large  resources 
in  conversation,  he  did  not  use  them  for  dis- 
play, but  with  the  light  touch  and  the  kindly 
humor  which  give  ease  and  grace  to  talk.  He 
never  uttered  a  bitter  or  cynical  word.  No 
one  enjoyed  more  than  he  the  beauty  and  ele- 
gance which  contribute,  nay,  which  are  es- 
sential, to  the  charm  of  society  at  its  best,  and 
without  extravagance  or  ostentation  he  se- 
[  27  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

cured  them  so  far  as  possible  in  his  own  sur- 
roundings. Like  the  scholar  in  the  Prelude  to 
the  "Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  he  was 

"A  man  of  such  a  genial  mood 
The  heart  of  all  things  he  embraced, 
And  yet  of  such  fastidious  taste, 
He  never  found  the  best  too  good." 

It  was,  indeed,  the  best  company  that 
Longfellow  gathered  round  the  hospitable 
Craigie  House  table,  and  pleasanter  dinners 
or  suppers  were  never  given  than  those  over 
which,  for  many  years,  Mrs.  Longfellow 
presided  with  sweet,  gracious  dignity,  and  at 
which  the  familiar  guests  were  not  unworthy 
of  their  hosts.  Among  the  most  familiar  were 
Lowell,  the  near  neighbor  and  constant  friend; 
Tom  Appleton,  the  brother  of  Mrs.  Longfel- 
low, the  wit,  the  humorist,  possessed,  as  he 
with  but  partial  truth  complained,  of  the 
temperament  of  genius  without  the  genius; 
Agassiz,  with  his  fine  amplitude  of  person, 
intelligence,  and  sympathy;  Felton,  the  most 
genial  and  jovial  of  professors  of  Greek; 
George  W.  Greene  of  Rhode  Island,  a  friend 
from  the  old  days  of  Longfellow's  first  visit 


LONGFELLOW 

to  Rome  in  1827;  while  rarer  but  always  wel- 
come guests  were  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Sum- 
ner,  Fields,  Howells,  and  now  and  then  Child 
and  George  William  Curtis,  two  of  the  plea- 
santest  and  most  lovable  of  men.  Strangers 
of  distinction,  foreign  or  native  born,  found 
place  at  a  table  which  culture  and  good-breed- 
ing made  cosmopolitan.  Longfellow  kept  his 
friendships  in  excellent  repair;  even  those 
which  might  seem  to  an  outsider  to  cost  more 
than  they  were  worth.  He  was  true  to  what 
had  been ;  remembrance  maintained  life  in  the 
ashes  of  the  old  affection,  and  he  never  made 
his  own  fame  or  his  many  occupations  an  excuse 
for  disregarding  the  claims  of  a  dull  acquaint- 
ance, or  of  one  fallen  in  the  world. 

In  the  peaceful  warmth  and  light  of  domes- 
tic joys  and  social  pleasures,  the  genius 
of  the  poet  found  its  true  atmosphere.  His 
voice  took  on  a  fuller  tone,  the  range  of  his 
expression  became  wider  and  its  mode  more 
confident,  and  when  in  1847  he  published 
"  Evangeline,"  a  longer  and  more  elaborate 
composition  than  he  had  hitherto  attempted, 
his  reputation  was  largely  enhanced,  and  his 
[  29  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

position  as  the  most  popular  poet  of  his  gener- 
ation was  assured.  The  picturesque  charm, 
the  tender  sentiment,  the  imaginative  sympa- 
thy, the  purity  of  tone  of  this  sweetest  of  idyllic 
poems,  are  known  to  all  readers  of  English 
poetry. 

Happy  at  home,  conscious  of  the  ripening 
of  his  own  powers,  in  the  enjoyment  of  well- 
deserved  fame,  the  course  of  Longfellow's 
life  ran  smoothly  on.  His  college  duties  gave 
a  regular  routine  to  his  days,  but  left  him  time 
for  his  poetic  pursuits,  and  for  those  occu- 
pations and  interests  to  which  his  disposition 
most  strongly  inclined,  and  in  which  the  fine 
qualities  of  his  nature  were  most  attractively 
displayed.  He  had  his  share  in  the  common 
experience  of  trials  and  sorrows.  The  death 
of  one  of  his  little  children  touched  his  heart 
deeply;  but  now  as  in  the  later  time  of  abid- 
ing sorrow,  as  Lowell  truly  said, — 

"the  more 

Fate  tried  his  bastions,  she  but  forced  a  door 
Leading  to  sweeter  manhood  and  more  sound." 

His  journal,  printed  in  the  "Life"  by  his 
brother,  contains  the  record  of  the  events  of 
[    30    ] 


LONGFELLOW 

these  fortunate  years,  while  the  poems  which 
appeared  in  1849  under  the  title  of  "The 
Seaside  and  the  Fireside"  reveal  the  course  of 
his  spiritual  experience.  In  the  beautiful 
verses  of  "  Dedication, "  with  which  this  little 
volume  begins,  he  addressed  the  multitude 
of  his  known  and  unknown  readers  with  such 
frank  and  cordial  recognition  of  his  relation 
to  them  as  to  make  them  more  than  ever  his 
friends,  and  in  the  noble  poem  of  "The  Build- 
ing of  the  Ship,"  which  immediately  follows 
the  "Dedication,"  he  rendered  a  great  public 
service,  in  appealing  to  the  national  sentiment 
of  his  people  with  such  an  inspiring  passion 
of  patriotic  fervor  as  quickened  faith  and 
strengthened  confidence  in  the  already  threat- 
ened union  of  the  States. 

No  living  poet  had  now  so  wide  a  circle  of 
readers,  and  his  readers  could  not  but  enter- 
tain for  him  a  sentiment  more  personal  and 
affectionate  than  that  which  any  other  poet 
awakened.  It  was  not  by  depth  or  novelty 
of  thought  that  he  interested  them,  nor  did  he 
move  them  by  passionate  intensity  of  emotion, 
or  by  profound  spiritual  insight,  or  by  power 
[  31  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

of  dramatic  representation  and  interpretation 
of  life.  He  set  himself  neither  to  propound 
nor  to  solve  the  enigmas  of  existence.  No,  the 
briefer  poems  by  which  he  won  and  held  the 
hearts  of  his  readers  were  the  expression  of 
simple  feeling,  of  natural  emotion,  not  of  ex- 
ceptional spiritual  experience,  but  of  such  as  is 
common  to  men  of  good  intent.  In  exquisitely 
modulated  verse  he  continued  to  give  form  to 
their  vague  ideals,  and  utterance  to  their 
stammering  aspirations.  In  revealing  his  own 
pure  and  sincere  nature,  he  helped  others  to 
recognize  their  own  better  selves.  The  strength 
and  simplicity  of  his  moral  sentiment  made  his 
poems  the  more  attractive  and  helpful  to  the 
mass  of  men,  who  care,  as  I  have  said,  rather 
for  the  ethical  significance  than  for  the  art  of 
poetry;  but  the  beauty  of  his  verse  enforced 
its  teaching,  and  the  melody  of  its  form  was 
consonant  with  the  sweetness  of  its  spirit.  In 
the  series  of  delightful  stories  which  year  after 
year  he  told  in  the  successive  parts  of  "The 
Wayside  Inn,"  there  were  few  which  did  not 
have  for  motive  some  wise  lesson  of  life,  some 
doctrine  of  charity,  gentleness,  and  faith.  The 
[  32  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

spirit  of  humanity,  of  large  hope,  of  cheerful 
confidence  in  good, — this  spirit  into  which  he 
was  born,  and  of  which  his  own  nature  was 
one  of  the  fairest  outcomes, — this  spirit  of  the 
New  England  of  the  early  nineteenth  century, 
— is  embodied  in  his  verse. 

And  the  charm  which  his  verse  exercised 
over  its  readers,  especially  over  its  American 
readers,  continued  to  be  enhanced  by  the 
variety  and  abundance  of  its  sources.  From 
Sicily  to  Norway,  from  the  castles  of  Spain  to 
the  vineyards  of  France,  from  the  strongholds 
of  the  Rhine  to  the  convents  of  Italy,  the  poet 
was  everywhere  at  home,  not  as  a  passing 
guest,  but  as  an  intimate  familiar  with  the 
landscape,  the  life,  and  the  legends  of  the  land. 
He  begins  one  of  his  poems,  — 

"Sweet  the  memory  is  to  me 
Of  a  land  beyond  the  sea," 

and  he  made  his  readers  sharers  in  the  sweet- 
ness. In  thus  enlarging  the  field  of  vision  for 
his  readers,  in  stimulating  their  historic  imagi- 
nation, and  in  quickening  their  sympathies 
with  their  fellows  of  other  lands,  Longfellow 
was  unrivalled.  His  poems  were  a  large  con- 
[  33  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

tribution  to  that  world-literature,  on  which 
Goethe  set  such  store  as  the  means  of  bring- 
ing the  nations  into  closer  relations  with  each 
other,  by  the  increase  of  their  mutual  under- 
standing and  of  their  common  sentiments. 

Gratefully  as  the  worth  and  beauty  of  his 
work  were  generally  recognized,  Longfellow 
did  not  escape  from  the  penalties  of  success. 
He  had  critics  who.  blinding  themselves  to  the 
essentially  characteristic  individuality  of  his 
poetry,  denied  to  him  the  possession  of  gen- 
uine original  powers,  and  sought  to  discover 
defects  alike  in  the  substance  and  in  the  form 
of  his  verse.  His  modest  and  sensitive  nature 
was  hurt  by  their  attacks,  but  his  serenity 
was  little  disturbed.  The  verdict  of  the  more 
competent  judges,  no  less  than  that  of  the 
uncritical  public,  went  against  them,  and  by 
degrees  the  voices  of  depreciation  and  de- 
traction became  faint  and  silent. 

"The  Golden  Legend,"  "The  Song  of 
Hiawatha,"  "The  Courtship  of  Miles  Stand- 
ish,"  were  written  and  published  between  1850 
and  1860,  and  the  peaceful,  genial,  hospitable 
life  ran  on  in  its  sunny  and  prosperous  course, 
[  34  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

for  the  greater  part  of  each  year  at  Craigie 
House,  and  during  the  summer  at  Newport  or 
Nahant.  In  1854  Longfellow  resigned  his 
professorship,  but  happy  domestic  cares,  the 
frequent  company  of  friends,  many  social  en- 
gagements, the  ever  fresh  companionship  of 
books,  the  writing  of  poetry,  filled  the  days  with 
various  interests  and  abundant  occupation. 

On  a  day  in  June,  1861,  he  wrote  in  his 
Journal:  "A  delicious  summer-day.  Stroll 
in  the  sunshine,  thanking  God."  The  words 
are,  as  it  were,  the  summary  of  his  happy  life, 
and  mark  its  close.  On  the  ninth  of  July 
Mrs.  Longfellow  was  in  the  library  with  her 
two  little  girls,  engaged  in  amusing  them  by 
sealing  up  small  packages  of  their  curls  which 
she  had  just  cut  off.  The  windows  were  open, 
and  the  summer  air  was  blowing  through  the 
room.  A  drop  of  the  sealing-wax  fell  on  her 
light  muslin  dress  and  set  it  on  fire.  To  save 
her  children  she  fled  from  them  to  the  hall. 
Her  husband  sped  from  his  study  to  her  help. 
He  succeeded  in  extinguishing  the  flames  but 
he  was  severely  burned,  and  for  her  there  was 
no  recovery.  The  next  morning  she  died. 
[  35  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

Calmly  and  resolutely  Longfellow  took  up 
the  burden  of  life.  He  bore  his  grief  with 
manliness  and  silence.  The  admirable  quali- 
ties of  his  nature  were  never  more  apparent. 
By  degrees  he  resumed  so  far  as  was  possible 
his  old  habits  of  life,  but  with  an  ennobled 
bearing,  and  unaffected  serenity.  In  Febru- 
ary, 1862,  he  writes  in  his  journal:  "The  days 
pass  in  dull  monotony,  and  having  nothing 
to  record  I  record  nothing.  A  newspaper,  a 
novel,  a  vain  attempt  at  more  serious  study, 
and  weariness — that  is  all."  But  a  week  later 
comes  the  entry  "Translated  the  beautiful 
Canto  XXV  of  the  Paradiso,"  and  there  could 
not  have  been  a  more  appropriate  or  more 
healing  task.  For  the  next  five  years  the  trans- 
lation of  the  "Divine  Comedy"  was  to  be  his 
chief  occupation,  and  the  main  restorative  of 
health.  In  May,  1867,  the  work  was  finished, 
and  on  its  publication  it  at  once  took  its  place, 
a  place  which  it  is  likely  to  hold,  as  the  most 
faithful  and  scholarly  of  the  metrical  versions 
of  the  poem. 

As  the  years  went  on  Longfellow  became  to 
all  outward  seeming  cheerful  as  of  old,  and 
[  36  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

with  perfect  simplicity  took  his  customary 
delightful  part  in  the  society  of  his  friends. 
Again  the  life  at  Craigie  House  flowed  on 
in  a  peaceful  current,  but  it  was  no  longer  a 
summer  stream.  The  light  upon  it  was  that 
of  the  autumnal  sun.  Longfellow's  fame  was 
steadily  widening,  and  brought  with  it  an 
ever  increasing  burden  of  demands  made  upon 
his  time  and  strength  by  the  visits  or  the  let- 
ters of  a  numberless  host  of  strangers.  The 
penalty  had  its  humorous  side,  but  it  was  none 
the  less  a  penalty,  exacted  of  the  poet  by  the 
great  democracy  of  America  and  England 
whose  hearts  he  had  touched,  and  who  as- 
sumed that  the  notoriety  of  his  works  justified 
the  treatment  of  their  author  as  a  public  char- 
acter. His  courtesy  and  kindness  were  unfail- 
ing, and  his  imaginative  sympathy  often  led 
him  to  make  sacrifice  of  his  time  and  strength 
for  the  sake  of  giving  pleasure  to  others.  I 
have  told  the  story  before,  but  it  is  worth  re- 
peating as  an  illustration  of  his  invincible  con- 
siderateness  for  the  feelings  of  men  whom  the 
world  is  apt  to  rebuff,  how  one  day  when  I 
ventured  to  remonstrate  with  him  for  permit- 
[  37  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

ting  the  devastation  of  his  hours  by  one  of  the 
most  pertinacious  and  undeserving  of  habitual 
visitors,  he  listened  with  a  humorous  smile,  and 
then  rebuked  me  by  saying,  "Why,  Charles, 
who  will  be  kind  to  him  if  I  am  not  ?  " 

In  1868,  in  company  with  his  daughters 
and  other  friends,  he  once  more,  after  an  in- 
terval of  twenty-six  years,  visited  Europe.  He 
was  everywhere  received  with  the  heartiest 
welcome,  and  as  a  guest  of  the  highest  distinc- 
tion. The  universities  of  Cambridge  and  of 
Oxford  each  gave  to  him  an  honorary  degree; 
the  Queen  summoned  him  to  Windsor;  he 
spent  "two  happy  days  with  Tennyson;'5  he 
made  a  short  visit  to  Dickens  at  Gadshill. 
Expressions  of  regard  and  affection  flowed  in 
upon  him  from  high  and  low,  and  not  only  in 
England,  but  on  the  Continent  as  well,  he  met 
with  constant  evidence  of  honor  and  regard. 
He  returned  to  America  in  the  autumn  of  1869, 
and  speedily  resumed  the  old  habits  of  life  at 
home.  "It  is  pleasant  to  get  back  to  it,"  he 
wrote,  "and  yet  sad." 

He  had  enjoyed  the  experience  of  fame,  but 
adulation  and  the  knowledge  of  the  admira- 
[  38  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

tion  in  which  he  was  held  abroad  as  well  as  at 
home,  had  not  the  least  effect  to  quicken  van- 
ity or  self -consciousness.  The  essential  quali- 
ties of  his  nature  preserved  him  from  all  evil 
consequences  of  flattery.  He  remained  un- 
touched by  them,  as  simple  in  manner  as  in 
heart,  intrinsically  modest  and  sound-minded. 
He  was  "a  man  not  to  be  spoiled  by  prosperity." 

The  approach  of  old  age  did  not  chill  Long- 
fellow's heart  or  diminish  his  poetic  impulse 
and  skill.  The  poems  in  the  little  volume  of 
"Ultima  Thule,"  published  in  1880,  bore  wit- 
ness that  the  prayer  of  the  motto  from  Horace 
on  the  title-page  had  been  granted,  —  the 
prayer  for  an  old  age  with  unimpaired  mind, 
not  without  honor  nor  lacking  song. 

Attended  by  all  that  should  accompany  old 
age,  life  drew  to  its  close.  In  the  autumn  of 
1881  he  had  an  attack  of  illness,  which  left 
him  in  a  condition  of  nervous  prostration  and 
suffering.  Neither  pain  nor  sleeplessness  could 
overcome  his  patience ;  the  serenity  of  his  soul 
was  unclouded,  but  his  desire  for  death  was 
strong.  In  March,  1882,  a  chill  caught  in  an 
afternoon  walk  on  his  veranda  brought  on  a 
[  39  ] 


LONGFELLOW 

sharp  attack  of  illness,  —  his  strength  failed 
rapidly,  and  after  five  days,  on  Friday,  the  24th 
of  March,  he  died.  Never  had  a  poet  been  so 
widely  loved,  never  was  the  death  of  a  poet 
so  widely  mourned. 

At  the  burial,  Mr.  Emerson,  whose  own 
death  was  to  follow  in  less  than  five  weeks, 
and  whose  powers  of  memory  were  already 
shattered,  standing  near  the  grave,  said  to  his 
companion,  "I  cannot  recall  the  name  of  our 
friend,  but  he  was  a  good  man."  Longfellow's 
poetry  is  the  image  of  his  goodness.  Its  music, 
the  harmony  of  its  verse  and  thought,  the  sim- 
plicity of  its  expression,  the  sincerity  of  its  sen- 
timent, are  all  traits  of  character  no  less  than 
of  genius.  Like  most  other  poets  he  doubt- 
less wrote  much  that  will  not  last,  and  as  his 
barque  floats  down  the  current  of  time  there 
will  be  jettison  of  part  of  the  cargo.  But  what 
remains  will  be  dear  to  future  generations 
as  to  ours,  and  the  lovers  of  the  poetry  will 
then,  as  now,  be  lovers  of  the  poet. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  POEMS 


THE  BATTLE  OF  LOVELL'S  POND1 

COLD,  cold  is  the  north  wind  and  rude  is  the  blast 

That  sweeps  like  a  hurricane  loudly  and  fast, 

As  it  moans  through  the  tall  waving  pines  lone  and 

drear, 
Sighs  a  requiem  sad  o'er  the  warrior's  bier. 

The  war-whoop  is  still,  and  the  savage's  yell 

Has  sunk  into  silence  along  the  wild  dell; 

The  din  of  the  battle,  the  tumult,  is  o'er, 

And  the  war-clarion's  voice  is  now  heard  no  more. 

1  These  verses  were  written  by  Longfellow  in  his  fourteenth  year, 
and  have  interest  as  the  first  of  his  writing  to  appear  in  print.  They 
were  published  in  the  Portland  Gazette  November  17,  1820. 

The  battle  to  which  they  refer  was  famous  in  the  annals  of 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  and  the  story  of  it  was  fitted  to  touch 
a  boy's  fancy.  It  was  one  in  the  long  series  of  unhappy  fights  be- 
tween the  settlers  in  the  wild  border  region  of  Maine  and  the  Indians 
whom  they  dispossessed  and  maltreated.  In  the  spring  of  1724  a 
volunteer  company  of  forty-six  men,  under  the  command  of  Captain 
John  Lovewell,  who  in  the  preceding  winter  had  conducted  two  suc- 
cessful expeditions  against  the  Indians,  set  out  to  attack  the  Indian 
villages  on  the  upper  part  of  the  Saco  River.  On  the  third  of  May, 
near  a  large  pond,  they  met  a  considerable  body  of  Indians  and  en- 
gaged in  a  battle  in  which  Lovewell  and  more  than  thirty  of  his  men 
were  killed.  It  was  the  last  serious  fight  with  the  Indians  in  this 
part  of  the  country. 

In  1825  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  battle  was  commemorated 
at  Fryeburg,  Maine,  and  the  still  youthful  poet  wrote  an  Ode  for  the 
occasion. 


PRELUDE  TO 

The  warriors  that  fought  for  their  country,  and  bled, 
Have  sunk  to  their  rest;  the  damp  earth  is  their  bed; 
No  stone  tells  the  place  where  their  ashes  repose, 
Nor  points  out  the  spot  from  the  graves  of  their  foes. 

They  died  in  their  glory,  surrounded  by  fame, 
And  Victory's  loud  trump  their  death  did  proclaim; 
They  are  dead;  but  they  live  in  each  Patriot's  breast, 
And  their  names  are  engraven  on  honor's  bright  crest. 


PRELUDE  TO  VOICES   OF  THE   NIGHT 

PLEASANT  it  was,  when  woods  were  green 

And  winds  were  soft  and  low, 
To  lie  amid  some  sylvan  scene, 
Where,  the  long  drooping  boughs  between, 
Shadows  dark  and  sunlight  sheen 
Alternate  come  and  go; 

Or  where  the  denser  grove  receives 

No  sunlight  from  above, 
But  the  dark  foliage  interweaves 
In  one  unbroken  roof  of  leaves, 
Underneath  whose  sloping  eaves 

The  shadows  hardly  move. 

Beneath  some  patriarchal  tree 

I  lay  upon  the  ground; 
His  hoary  arms  uplifted  he, 
And  all  the  broad  leaves  over  me 
[    44    ] 


VOICES  OF  THE  NIGHT 

Clapped  their  little  hands  in  glee, 
With  one  continuous  sound;  — 

A  slumberous  sound,  a  sound  that  brings 

The  feelings  of  a  dream, 
As  of  innumerable  wings, 
As,  when  a  bell  no  longer  swings, 
Faint  the  hollow  murmur  rings 

O'er  meadow,  lake,  and  stream. 

And  dreams  of  that  which  cannot  die, 

Bright  visions,  came  to  me, 
As  lapped  in  thought  I  used  to  lie, 
And  gaze  into  the  summer  sky, 
Where  the  sailing  clouds  went  by, 

Like  ships  upon  the  sea; 

Dreams  that  the  soul  of  youth  engage 

Ere  Fancy  has  been  quelled; 
Old  legends  of  the  monkish  page, 
Traditions  of  the  saint  and  sage, 
Tales  that  have  the  rime  of  age, 

And  chronicles  of  eld. 

And,  loving  still  these  quaint  old  themes, 

Even  in  the  city's  throng 
I  feel  the  freshness  of  the  streams, 
That,  crossed  by  shades  and  sunny  gleams, 
Water  the  green  land  of  dreams, 

The  holy  land  of  song. 


PRELUDE  TO 

Therefore,  at  Pentecost,  which  brings 
The  Spring,  clothed  like  a  bride, 

When  nestling  buds  unfold  their  wings, 

And  bishop's-caps  have  golden  rings, 

Musing  upon  many  things, 
I  sought  the  woodlands  wide. 

The  green  trees  whispered  low  and  mild; 

It  was  a  sound  of  joy! 
They  were  my  playmates  when  a  child, 
And  rocked  me  in  their  arms  so  wild! 
Still  they  looked  at  me  and  smiled, 

As  if  I  were  a  boy; 

And  ever  whispered,  mild  and  low, 
"Come,  be  a  child  once  more!" 

And  waved  their  long  arms  to  and  fro, 

And  beckoned  solemnly  and  slow; 

Oh,  I  could  not  choose  but  go 
Into  the  woodlands  hoar,  — 

Into  the  blithe  and  breathing  air, 

Into  the  solemn  wood, 
Solemn  and  silent  everywhere! 
Nature  with  folded  hands  seemed  there. 
Kneeling  at  her  evening  prayer! 

Like  one  in  prayer  I  stood. 

Before  me  rose  an  avenue 
Of  tall  and  sombrous  pines; 
[    46    ] 


VOICES  OF  THE  NIGHT 

Abroad  their  fan-like  branches  grew, 
And,  where  the  sunshine  darted  through, 
Spread  a  vapor  soft  and  blue, 
In  long  and  sloping  lines. 

And,  falling  on  my  weary  brain, 

Like  a  fast-falling  shower, 
The  dreams  of  youth  came  back  again,  — 
Low  lispings  of  the  summer  rain, 
Dropping  on  the  ripened  grain, 

As  once  upon  the  flower. 

Visions  of  childhood!  Stay,  oh,  stay! 

Ye  were  so  sweet  and  wild! 
And  distant  voices  seemed  to  say, 
"It  cannot  be!   They  pass  away! 
Other  themes  demand  thy  lay; 

Thou  art  no  more  a  child! 

"  The  land  of  Song  within  thee  lies, 

Watered  by  living  springs; 
The  lids  of  Fancy's  sleepless  eyes 
Are  gates  unto  that  Paradise; 
Holy  thoughts,  like  stars,  arise; 
Its  clouds  are  angels'  wings. 

"Learn,  that  henceforth  thy  song  shall  be, 

Not  mountains  capped  with  snow, 
Nor  forests  sounding  like  the  sea, 
Nor  rivers  flowing  ceaselessly, 
[    47    ] 


VOICES  OF  THE  NIGHT 

Where  the  woodlands  bend  to  see 
The  bending  heavens  below. 

*  There  is  a  forest  where  the  din 

Of  iron  branches  sounds; 
A  mighty  river  roars  between, 
And  whosoever  looks  therein 
Sees  the  heavens  all  black  with  sin, 

Sees  not  its  depths  nor  bounds. 

"Athwart  the  swinging  branches  cast, 

Soft  rays  of  sunshine  pour; 
Then  comes  the  fearful  wintry  blast; 
Our  hopes,  like  withered  leaves,  fall  fast; 
Pallid  lips  say,  'It  is  past! 

We  can  return  no  more!' 

"Look,  then,  into  thy  heart,  and  write! 

Yes,  into  life's  deep  stream! 
All  forms  of  sorrow  and  delight, 
All  solemn  Voices  of  the  Night, 
That  can  soothe  thee,  or  affright,  — 

Be  these  henceforth  thy  theme." 


[    48    ] 


A   PSALM   OF   LIFE 


A  PSALM   OF  LIFE 

WHAT  THE   HEART  OF  THE  YOUNG   MAN  SAID   TO  THE 
PSALMIST 

TELL  me  not,  in  mournful  numbers, 
Life  is  but  an  empty  dream !  — 

For  the  soul  is  dead  that  slumbers. 
And  things  are  not  what  they  seem. 

Life  is  real!   Life  is  earnest! 

And  the  grave  is  not  its  goal; 
Dust  thou  art,  to  dust  returnest, 

Was  not  spoken  of  the  soul. 

Not  enjoyment,  and  not  sorrow, 

Is  our  destined  end  or  way; 
But  to  act,  that  each  to-morrow 

Find  us  farther  than  to-day. 

Art  is  long,  and  Time  is  fleeting, 

And  our  hearts,  though  stout  and  brave, 

Still,  like  muffled  drums,  are  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  the  grave. 

In  the  world's  broad  field  of  battle, 

In  the  bivouac  of  Life, 
Be  not  like  dumb,  driven  cattle! 

Be  a  hero  in  the  strife! 


WRECK    OF   THE    HESPERUS 

Trust  no  Future,  howe'er  pleasant! 

Let  the  dead  Past  bury  its  dead ! 
Act,  —  act  in  the  living  Present ! 

Heart  within,  and  God  o'erhead! 

Lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 
We  can  make  our  lives  sublime, 

And,  departing,  leave  behind  us 
Footprints  on  the  sands  of  time; 

Footprints,  that  perhaps  another, 
Sailing  o'er  life's  solemn  main, 

A  forlorn  and  shipwrecked  brother, 
Seeing,  shall  take  heart  again. 

Let  us,  then,  be  up  and  doing, 
With  a  heart  for  any  fate; 

Still  achieving,  still  pursuing, 
Learn  to  labor  and  to  wait. 


THE   WRECK   OF  THE   HESPERUS 

IT  was  the  schooner  Hesperus, 

That  sailed  the  wintry  sea; 
And  the  skipper  had  taken  his  little  daughter, 

To  bear  him  company. 

Blue  were  her  eyes  as  the  fairy-flax, 
Her  cheeks  like  the  dawn  of  day, 
[    50    ] 


WRECK   OF   THE   HESPERUS 

And  her  bosom  white  as  the  hawthorn  buds, 
That  ope  in  the  month  of  May. 

The  skipper  he  stood  beside  the  helm, 

His  pipe  was  in  his  mouth, 
And  he  watched  how  the  veering  flaw  did  blow 

The  smoke  now  West,  now  South. 

Then  up  and  spake  an  old  Sailor, 

Had  sailed  to  the  Spanish  Main, 
"  I  pray  thee,  put  into  yonder  port, 
For  I  fear  a  hurricane. 

"  Last  night,  the  moon  had  a  golden  ring, 

And  to-night  no  moon  we  see ! " 
The  skipper,  he  blew  a  whiff  from  his  pipe, 
And  a  scornful  laugh  laughed  he. 

Colder  and  louder  blew  the  wind, 

A  gale  from  the  Northeast, 
The  snow  fell  hissing  in  the  brine, 

And  the  billows  frothed  like  yeast. 

Down  came  the  storm,  and  smote  amain 

The  vessel  in  its  strength; 
She  shuddered  and  paused,  like  a  frighted  steed, 

Then  leaped  her  cable's  length. 

"  Come  hither !  come  hither !  my  little  daughter, 
And  do  not  tremble  so; 
[    51    ] 


WRECK   OF   THE   HESPERUS 

For  I  can  weather  the  roughest  gale 
That  ever  wind  did  blow." 


He  wrapped  her  warm  in  his  seaman's  coat 

Against  the  stinging  blast; 
He  cut  a  rope  from  a  broken  spar, 

And  bound  her  to  the  mast. 

"O  father!  I  hear  the  church-bells  ring, 

Oh  say,  what  may  it  be  ?  " 
"'Tis  a  fog-bell  on  a  rock-bound  coast!"  — 

And  he  steered  for  the  open  sea. 

"O  father!  I  hear  the  sound  of  guns, 

Oh  say,  what  may  it  be  ? " 
"Some  ship  in  distress,  that  cannot  live 

In  such  an  angry  sea!" 

"O  father!   I  see  a  gleaming  light, 

Oh  say,  what  may  it  be  ?  " 
But  the  father  answered  never  a  word, 
A  frozen  corpse  was  he. 

Lashed  to  the  helm,  all  stiff  and  stark, 
With  his  face  turned  to  the  skies, 

The  lantern  gleamed  through  the  gleaming  snow 
On  his  fixed  and  glassy  eyes. 

Then  the  maiden  clasped  her  hands  and  prayed 
That  saved  she  might  be; 
[    52    ] 


WRECK   OF  THE  HESPERUS 

And  she  thought  of  Christ  who  stilled  the  wave, 
On  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 


And  fast  through  the  midnight  dark  and  drear, 
Through  the  whistling  sleet  and  snow, 

Like  a  sheeted  ghost,  the  vessel  swept 
Tow'rds  the  reef  of  Norman's  Woe. 

And  ever  the  fitful  gusts  between 

A  sound  came  from  the  land; 
It  was  the  sound  of  the  trampling  surf 

On  the  rocks  and  the  hard  sea-sand. 

The  breakers  were  right  beneath  her  bows, 

She  drifted  a  dreary  wreck, 
And  a  whooping  billow  swept  the  crew 

Like  icicles  from  her  deck. 

She  struck  where  the  white  and  fleecy  waves 

Looked  soft  as  carded  wool, 
But  the  cruel  rocks,  they  gored  her  side 

Like  the  horns  of  an  angry  bull. 

Her  rattling  shrouds,  all  sheathed  in  ice, 
With  the  masts  went  by  the  board; 

Like  a  vessel  of  glass,  she  stove  and  sank, 
Ho!  ho!  the  breakers  roared! 

At  daybreak,  on  the  bleak  sea-beach, 
A  fisherman  stood  aghast, 
[    53    ] 


THE   VILLAGE    BLACKSMITH 

To  see  the  form  of  a  maiden  fair, 
Lashed  close  to  a  drifting  mast. 

The  salt  sea  was  frozen  on  her  breast, 

The  salt  tears  in  her  eyes; 
And  he  saw  her  hair,  like  the  brown  seaweed, 

On  the  billows  fall  and  rise. 

Such  was  the  wreck  of  the  Hesperus, 
In  the  midnight  and  the  snow! 

Christ  save  us  all  from  a  death  like  this, 
On  the  reef  of  Norman's  Woe! 


THE  VILLAGE   BLACKSMITH1 

UNDER  a  spreading  chestnut-tree 

The  village  smithy  stands; 
The  smith,  a  mighty  man  is  he, 

With  large  and  sinewy  hands; 
And  the  muscles  of  his  brawny  arms 

Are  strong  as  iron  bands. 

His  hair  is  crisp,  and  black,  and  long, 
His  face  is  like  the  tan; 

1  The  suggestion  of  this  poem  came  from  the  smithy  which  the 
poet  passed  daily,  and  which  stood  beneath  a  horse-chestnut  tree 
not  far  from  his  house  in  Cambridge.  The  tree,  against  the  pro- 
tests of  Mr.  Longfellow  and  others,  was  removed  in  1876,  on  the 
ground  that  it  took  up  too  much  of  the  road. 
E  54  ] 


THE   VILLAGE   BLACKSMITH 

His  brow  is  wet  with  honest  sweat, 

He  earns  whate'er  he  can, 
And  looks  the  whole  world  in  the  face, 

For  he  owes  not  any  man. 

Week  in,  week  out,  from  morn  till  night, 
You  can  hear  his  bellows  blow; 

You  can  hear  him  swing  his  heavy  sledge, 
With  measured  beat  and  slow, 

Like  a  sexton  ringing  the  village  bell, 
When  the  evening  sun  is  low. 

And  children  coming  home  from  school 

Look  in  at  the  open  door; 
They  love  to  see  the  flaming  forge, 

And  hear  the  bellows  roar, 
And  watch  the  burning  sparks  that  fly 

Like  chaff  from  a  threshing-floor. 

He  goes  on  Sunday  to  the  church, 

And  sits  among  his  boys; 
He  hears  the  parson  pray  and  preach. 

He  hears  his  daughter's  voice, 
Singing  in  the  village  choir, 

And  it  makes  his  heart  rejoice. 

It  sounds  to  him  like  her  mother's  voice, 

Singing  in  Paradise! 
He  needs  must  think  of  her  once  more, 

How  in  the  grave  she  lies; 
[    65    ] 


TO   THE   RIVER   CHARLES 

And  with  his  hard,  rough  hand  he  wipes 
A  tear  out  of  his  eyes. 

Toiling,  —  rejoicing,  —  sorrowing, 

Onward  through  life  he  goes; 
Each  morning  sees  some  task  begin, 

Each  evening  sees  it  close; 
Something  attempted,  something  done, 

Has  earned  a  night's  repose. 

Thanks,  thanks  to  thee,  my  worthy  friend, 
For  the  lesson  thou  hast  taught ! 

Thus  at  the  flaming  forge  of  life 
Our  fortunes  must  be  wrought; 

Thus  on  its  sounding  anvil  shaped 
Each  burning  deed  and  thought. 


TO   THE   RIVER   CHARLES 

RIVER!  that  in  silence  windest 

Through  the  meadows,  bright  and  free, 

Till  at  length  thy  rest  thou  findest 
In  the  bosom  of  the  sea! 

Four  long  years  of  mingled  feeling, 
Half  in  rest,  and  half  in  strife, 

I  have  seen  thy  waters  stealing 
Onward,  like  the  stream  of  life.1 

1  The  river  Charles  flows  in  view  of  Craigie  House,  which  Mr. 
Longfellow  began  to  occupy  in  the  summer  of  1837. 
[    56    ] 


TO  THE  RIVER  CHARLES 

Thou  hast  taught  me,  Silent  River! 

Many  a  lesson,  deep  and  long; 
Thou  hast  been  a  generous  giver; 

I  can  give  thee  but  a  song. 

Oft  in  sadness  and  in  illness, 

I  have  watched  thy  current  glide, 

Till  the  beauty  of  its  stillness 
Overflowed  me,  like  a  tide. 

And  in  better  hours  and  brighter, 
When  I  saw  thy  waters  gleam, 

I  have  felt  my  heart  beat  lighter, 
And  leap  onward  with  thy  stream. 

Not  for  this  alone  I  love  thee, 
Nor  because  thy  waves  of  blue 

From  celestial  seas  above  thee 
Take  their  own  celestial  hue. 

Where  yon  shadowy  woodlands  hide  thee, 

And  thy  waters  disappear, 
Friends  I  love  have  dwelt  beside  thee, 

And  have  made  thy  margin  dear. 

More  than  this ;  —  thy  name  reminds  me 
Of  three  friends,1  all  true  and  tried; 

And  that  name,  like  magic,  binds  me 
Closer,  closer  to  thy  side. 

1  These  three  friends  were  Charles  Sumner,  Charles  Folsom,  and 
Charles  Amory. 

[    57    ] 


THE    BRIDGE 

Friends  my  soul  with  joy  remembers ! 

How  like  quivering  flames  they  start, 
When  I  fan  the  living  embers 

On  the  hearthstone  of  my  heart ! 

'Tis  for  this,  thou  Silent  River! 

That  my  spirit  leans  to  thee; 
Thou  hast  been  a  generous  giver, 

Take  this  idle  song  from  me. 


THE   BRIDGE.1 

I  STOOD  on  the  bridge  at  midnight, 
As  the  clocks  were  striking  the  hour, 

And  the  moon  rose  o'er  the  city, 
Behind  the  dark  church-tower. 

I  saw  her  bright  reflection 

In  the  waters  under  me, 
Like  a  golden  goblet  falling 

And  sinking  into  the  sea. 

And  far  in  the  hazy  distance 
Of  that  lovely  night  in  June, 

1  The  poem  when  first  published  in  1845  was  entitled  The  Bridge 
over  the  Charles,  the  river  which  separates  Cambridge  from  Boston. 
The  old  wooden  bridge  has  now,  1906,  given  place  to  one  of  stone. 
The  "  flaming  furnace "  referred  to  in  the  third  stanza  was  that  of 
an  iron  foundry  on  the  so-called  Milldam  between  Boston  and 
Brookline. 


THE    BRIDGE 

The  blaze  of  the  flaming  furnace 
Gleamed  redder  than  the  moon. 


Among  the  long,  black  rafters 

The  wavering  shadows  lay, 
And  the  current  that  came  from  the  ocean 

Seemed  to  lift  and  bear  them  away; 

As,  sweeping  and  eddying  through  them, 

Rose  the  belated  tide, 
And,  streaming  into  the  moonlight, 

The  seaweed  floated  wide. 

And  like  those  waters  rushing 

Among  the  wooden  piers, 
A  flood  of  thoughts  came  o'er  me 

That  filled  my  eyes  with  tears. 

How  often,  oh  how  often, 

In  the  days  that  had  gone  by, 

I  had  stood  on  that  bridge  at  midnight 
And  gazed  on  that  wave  and  sky! 

How  often,  oh  how  often, 

I  had  wished  that  the  ebbing  tide 

Would  bear  me  away  on  its  bosom 
O'er  the  ocean  wild  and  wide! 

For  my  heart  was  hot  and  restless, 
And  my  life  was  full  of  care, 
[    69    ] 


THE  BRIDGE 

And  the  burden  laid  upon  me 
Seemed  greater  than  I  could  bear. 

But  now  it  has  fallen  from  me, 

It  is  buried  in  the  sea; 
And  only  the  sorrow  of  others 

Throws  its  shadow  over  me. 

Yet  whenever  I  cross  the  river 
On  its  bridge  with  wooden  piers, 

Like  the  odor  of  brine  from  the  ocean 
Comes  the  thought  of  other  years. 

And  I  think  how  many  thousands 

Of  care-encumbered  men, 
Each  bearing  his  burden  of  sorrow, 

Have  crossed  the  bridge  since  then. 

I  see  the  long  procession 

Still  passing  to  and  fro, 
The  young  heart  hot  and  restless, 

And  the  old  subdued  and  slow! 

And  forever  and  forever, 
As  long  as  the  river  flows, 

As  long  as  the  heart  has  passions, 
As  long  as  life  has  woes; 

The  moon  and  its  broken  reflection 
And  its  shadows  shall  appear, 

As  the  symbol  of  love  in  heaven, 
And  its  wavering  image  here. 
[    60    ] 


THE   ROPEWALK 


THE   ROPEWALK.1 

IN  that  building,  long  and  low, 
With  its  windows  all  a-row, 

Like  the  port-holes  of  a  hulk, 
Human  spiders  spin  and  spin, 
Backward  down  their  threads  so  thin 

Dropping,  each  a  hempen  bulk. 

At  the  end,  an  open  door; 
Squares  of  sunshine  on  the  floor 

Light  the  long  and  dusky  lane; 
And  the  whirring  of  a  wheel, 
Dull  and  drowsy,  makes  me  feel 

All  its  spokes  are  in  my  brain. 

As  the  spinners  to  the  end 
Downward  go  and  reascend, 

Gleam  the  long  threads  in  the  sun; 
While  within  this  brain  of  mine 
Cobwebs  brighter  and  more  fine 

By  the  busy  wheel  are  spun. 

Two  fair  maidens  in  a  swing, 
Like  white  doves  upon  the  wing, 

First  before  my  vision  pass; 
Laughing,  as  their  gentle  hands 

1  The  Ropewalk  stood  on  the  further  end  of  the  open  tract,  of 
*hieh  the  greater  part  is  now,  1906,  known  as  the  Soldiers'  Field 
[    61    ] 


THE  ROPEWALK 

Closely  clasp  the  twisted  strands, 
At  their  shadow  on  the  grass. 

Then  a  booth  of  mountebanks, 
With  its  smell  of  tan  and  planks, 

And  a  girl  poised  high  in  air 
On  a  cord,  in  spangled  dress, 
With  a  faded  loveliness, 

And  a  weary  look  of  care. 

Then  a  homestead  among  farms, 
And  a  woman  with  bare  arms 

Drawing  water  from  a  well; 
As  the  bucket  mounts  apace, 
With  it  mounts  her  own  fair  face, 

As  at  some  magician's  spell. 

Then  an  old  man  in  a  tower, 
Ringing  loud  the  noontide  hour, 

While  the  rope  coils  round  and  round 
Like  a  serpent  at  his  feet, 
And  again,  in  swift  retreat, 

Nearly  lifts  him  from  the  ground. 

Then  within  a  prison-yard, 
Faces  fixed,  and  stern,  and  hard, 

Laughter  and  indecent  mirth; 
Ah !  it  is  the  gallows-tree ! 
Breath  of  Christian  charity, 

Blow,  and  sweep  it  from  the  earth ! 
[    62    ] 


A    GLEAM    OF   SUNSHINE 

Then  a  school-boy,  with  his  kite 
Gleaming  in  a  sky  of  light, 

And  an  eager,  upward  look; 
Steeds  pursued  through  lane  and  field; 
Fowlers  with  their  snares  concealed; 

And  an  angler  by  a  brook. 

Ships  rejoicing  in  the  breeze, 
Wrecks  that  float  o'er  unknown  seas, 

Anchors  dragged  through  faithless  sand ; 
Sea-fog  drifting  overhead, 
And,  with  lessening  line  and  lead, 

Sailors  feeling  for  the  land. 

All  these  scenes  do  I  behold, 
These,  and  many  left  untold, 

In  that  building  long  and  low; 
While  the  wheel  goes  round  and  round, 
With  a  drowsy,  dreamy  sound, 

And  the  spinners  backward  go. 


A   GLEAM   OF   SUNSHINE 

THIS  is  the  place.    Stand  still,  my  steed, 

Let  me  review  the  scene,- 
And  summon  from  the  shadowy  Past 

The  forms  that  once  have  been. 

The  Past  and  Present  here  unite 
Beneath  Time's  flowing  tide, 
[    63    ] 


A  GLEAM    OF   SUNSHINE 

Like  footprints  hidden  by  a  brook, 
But  seen  on  either  side. 

Here  runs  the  highway  to  the  town; 

There  the  green  lane  descends, 
Through  which  I  walked  to  church  with  thee, 

O  gentlest  of  my  friends ! 1 

The  shadow  of  the  linden-trees 

Lay  moving  on  the  grass; 
Between  them  and  the  moving  boughs, 

A  shadow,  thou  didst  pass. 

Thy  dress  was  like  the  lilies, 

And  thy  heart  as  pure  as  they: 
One  of  God's  holy  messengers 

Did  walk  with  me  that  day. 

I  saw  the  branches  of  the  trees 

Bend  down  thy  touch  to  meet, 
The  clover-blossoms  in  the  grass 

Rise  up  to  kiss  thy  feet. 

"Sleep,  sleep  to-day,  tormenting  cares, 

Of  earth  and  folly  born!" 
Solemnly  sang  the  village  choir 
On  that  sweet  Sabbath  morn. 

1  The  scene  of  this  poem  is  mentioned  in  the  poet's  diary  under 
date  of  August  31,  1846.  "In  the  afternoon  a  delicious  drive  with  F. 
and  C.  through  Brookline,  by  the  church  and  '  the  green  lane,'  and 
homeward  through  a  lovelier  lane,  with  barberries  and  wild  vines 
clustering  over  the  old  stone  walls." 

[    64    ] 


A  GLEAM  OF  SUNSHINE 

Through  the  closed  blinds  the  golden  sun 

Poured  in  a  dusty  beam, 
Like  the  celestial  ladder  seen 

By  Jacob  in  his  dream. 

And  ever  and  anon,  the  wind 

Sweet-scented  with  the  hay, 
Turned  o'er  the  hymn-book's  fluttering  leaves 

That  on  the  window  lay. 

Long  was  the  good  man's  sermon, 

Yet  it  seemed  not  so  to  me; 
For  he  spake  of  Ruth  the  beautiful, 

And  still  I  thought  of  thee. 

Long  was  the  prayer  he  uttered, 

Yet  it  seemed  not  so  to  me; 
For  in  my  heart  I  prayed  with  him, 

And  still  I  thought  of  thee. 

But  now,  alas!  the  place  seems  changed; 

Thou  art  no  longer  here: 
Part  of  the  sunshine  of  the  scene 

With  thee  did  disappear. 

Though  thoughts,  deep-rooted  in  my  heart, 

Like  pine-trees  dark  and  high, 
Subdue  the  light  of  noon,  and  breathe 

A  low  and  ceaseless  sigh; 
[    65    ] 


TO    A    CHILD 

This  memory  brightens  o'er  the  past, 
As  when  the  sun,  concealed 

Behind  some  cloud  that  near  us  hangs, 
Shines  on  a  distant  field. 


TO   A   CHILD 

DEAR  Child !  how  radiant  on  thy  mother's  knee, 

With  merry-making  eyes  and  jocund  smiles, 

Thou  gazest  at  the  painted  tiles, 

Whose  figures  grace, 

With  many  a  grotesque  form  and  face, 

The  ancient  chimney  of  thy  nursery! 

The  lady  with  the  gay  macaw, 

The  dancing  girl,  the  brave  bashaw 

With  bearded  lip  and  chin; 

And,  leaning  idly  o'er  his  gate, 

Beneath  the  imperial  fan  of  state, 

The  Chinese  mandarin. 

With  what  a  look  of  proud  command 
Thou  shakest  in  thy  little  hand 
The  coral  rattle  with  its  silver  bells, 
Making  a  merry  tune ! 
Thousands  of  years  in  Indian  seas 
That  coral  grew,  by  slow  degrees, 
Until  some  deadly  and  wild  monsoon 
Dashed  it  on  Coromandel's  sand ! 
Those  silver  bells 

t    66    ] 


TO    A    CHILD 

Reposed  of  yore, 

As  shapeless  ore, 

Far  down  in  the  deep-sunken  wells 

Of  darksome  mines, 

In  some  obscure  and  sunless  place, 

Beneath  huge  Chimborazo's  base, 

Or  Potosi's  o'erhanging  pines! 

And  thus  for  thee,  O  little  child, 

Through  many  a  danger  and  escape, 

The  tall  ships  passed  the  stormy  cape; 

For  thee  in  foreign  lands  remote, 

Beneath  a  burning,  tropic  clime, 

The  Indian  peasant,  chasing  the  wild  goat, 

Himself  as  swift  and  wild, 

In  falling,  clutched  the  frail  arbute, 

The  fibres  of  whose  shallow  root, 

Uplifted  from  the  soil,  betrayed 

The  silver  veins  beneath  it  laid, 

The  buried  treasures  of  the  miser,  Time. 

But,  lo!  thy  door  is  left  ajar; 
Thou  hearest  footsteps  from  afar; 
And,  at  the  sound, 
Thou  turnest  round 
With  quick  and  questioning  eyes, 
Like  one  who,  in  a  foreign  land, 
Beholds  on  every  hand 
Some  source  of  wonder  and  surprise! 
And,  restlessly,  impatiently, 
Thou  strivest,  strugglest,  to  be  free. 
[    67    ] 


TO   A    CHILD 

The  four  walls  of  thy  nursery 

Are  now  like  prison  walls  to  thee. 

No  more  thy  mother's  smiles, 

No  more  the  painted  tiles, 

Delight  thee,  nor  the  playthings  on  the  floor, 

That  won  thy  little,  beating  heart  before; 

Thou  strugglest  for  the  open  door. 

Through  these  once  solitary  halls 

Thy  pattering  footstep  falls. 

The  sound  of  thy  merry  voice 

Makes  the  old  walls 

Jubilant,  and  they  rejoice 

With  the  joy  of  thy  young  heart, 

O'er  the  light  of  whose  gladness 

No  shadows  of  sadness 

From  the  sombre  background  of  memory  start 

Once,  ah!  once,  within  these  walls, 
One  whom  memory  oft  recalls, 
The  Father  of  his  Country,  dwelt. 
And  yonder  meadows  broad  and  damp 
The  fires  of  the  besieging  camp 
Encircled  with  a  burning  belt. 
Up  and  down  these  echoing  stairs, 
Heavy  with  the  weight  of  cares, 
Sounded  his  majestic  tread; 
Yes!  within  this  very  room 
Sat  he  in  those  hours  of  gloom, 
Weary  both  in  heart  and  head. 
[    68    ] 


TO  A  CHILD 

But  what  are  these  grave  thoughts  to  thee  ? 

Out,  out!  into  the  open  air! 

Thy  only  dream  is  liberty, 

Thou  carest  little  how  or  where. 

I  see  thee  eager  at  thy  play, 

Now  shouting  to  the  apples  on  the  tree, 

With  cheeks  as  round  and  red  as  they; 

And  now  among  the  yellow  stalks, 

Among  the  flowering  shrubs  and  plants, 

As  restless  as  the  bee. 

Along  the  garden  walks, 

The  tracks  of  thy  small  carriage-wheels  I  trace; 

And  see  at  every  turn  how  they  efface 

Whole  villages  of  sand-roofed  tents, 

That  rise  like  golden  domes 

Above  the  cavernous  and  secret  homes 

Of  wandering  and  nomadic  tribes  of  ants. 

Ah,  cruel  little  Tamerlane, 

Who,  with  thy  dreadful  reign, 

Dost  persecute  and  overwhelm 

These  hapless  Troglodytes  of  thy  realm! 

What !  tired  already !  with  those  suppliant  looks, 
And  voice  more  beautiful  than  a  poet's  books 
Or  murmuring  sound  of  water  as  it  flows, 
Thou  comest  back  to  parley  with  repose! 
This  rustic  seat  in  the  old  apple-tree, 
With  its  o'erhanging  golden  canopy 
Of  leaves  illuminate  with  autumnal  hues, 
And  shining  with  the  argent  light  of  dews, 
[    69    ] 


TO   A   CHILD 

Shall  for  a  season  be  our  place  of  rest. 
Beneath  us,  like  an  oriole's  pendent  nest, 
From  which  the  laughing  birds  have  taken  wing, 
By  thee  abandoned,  hangs  thy  vacant  swing. 
Dream-like  the  waters  of  the  river  gleam; 
A  sailless  vessel  drops  adown  the  stream, 
And  like  it,  to  a  sea  as  wide  and  deep, 
Thou  driftest  gently  down  the  tides  of  sleep. 

0  child!  O  new-born  denizen 
Of  life's  great  city !  on  thy  head 
The  glory  of  the  morn  is  shed, 
Like  a  celestial  benison! 

Here  at  the  portal  thou  dost  stand, 
And  with  thy  little  hand 
Thou  openest  the  mysterious  gate 
Into  the  future's  undiscovered  land. 

1  see  its  valves  expand, 
As  at  the  touch  of  Fate ! 

Into  those  realms  of  love  and  hate, 

Into  that  darkness  blank  and  drear, 

By  some  prophetic  feeling  taught, 

I  launch  the  bold,  adventurous  thought, 

Freighted  with  hope  and  fear; 

As  upon  subterranean  streams, 

In  caverns  unexplored  and  dark, 

Men  sometimes  launch  a  fragile  bark, 

Laden  with  flickering  fire, 

And  watch  its  swift  receding  beams, 

[    70    ] 


TO    A   CHILD 

Until  at  length  they  disappear, 
And  in  the  distant  dark  expire. 

By  what  astrology  of  fear  or  hope 

Dare  I  to  cast  thy  horoscope ! 

Like  the  new  moon  thy  life  appears; 

A  little  strip  of  silver  light, 

And  widening  outward  into  night 

The  shadowy  disk  of  future  years; 

And  yet  upon  its  outer  rim, 

A  luminous  circle,  faint  and  dim, 

And  scarcely  visible  to  us  here, 

Rounds  and  completes  the  perfect  sphere; 

A  prophecy  and  intimation, 

A  pale  and  feeble  adumbration, 

Of  the  great  world  of  light,  that  lies 

Behind  all  human  destinies. 

Ah!  if  thy  fate,  with  anguish  fraught, 
Should  be  to  wet  the  dusty  soil 
With  the  hot  tears  and  sweat  of  toil,  — 
To  struggle  with  imperious  thought, 
Until  the  overburdened  brain, 
Weary  with  labor,  faint  with  pain, 
Like  a  jarred  pendulum,  retain 
Only  its  motion,  not  its  power,  — 
Remember,  in  that  perilous  hour, 
When  most  afflicted  and  oppressed, 
From  labor  there  shall  come  forth  rest. 

[    71    ] 


TO   A   CHILD 

And  if  a  more  auspicious  fate 

On  thy  advancing  steps  await, 

Still  let  it  ever  be"  thy  pride 

To  linger  by  the  laborer's  side; 

With  words  of  sympathy  or  song 

To  cheer  the  dreary  march  along 

Of  the  great  army  of  the  poor, 

O'er  desert  sand,  o'er  dangerous  moor. 

Nor  to  thyself  the  task  shall  be 

Without  reward;  for  thou  shalt  learn 

The  wisdom  early  to  discern 

True  beauty  in  utility; 

As  great  Pythagoras  of  yore, 

Standing  beside  the  blacksmith's  door, 

And  hearing  the  hammers,  as  they  smote 

The  anvils  with  a  different  note, 

Stole  from  the  varying  tones,  that  hung 

Vibrant  on  every  iron  tongue, 

The  secret  of  the  sounding  wire, 

And  formed  the  seven-chorded  lyre. 

Enough!  I  will  not  play  the  Seer; 
I  will  no  longer  strive  to  ope 
The  mystic  volume,  where  appear 
The  herald  Hope,  forerunning  Fear, 
And  Fear,  the  pursuivant  of  Hope. 
Thy  destiny  remains  untold; 
For,  like  Acestes*  shaft  of  old, 
The  swift  thought  kindles  as  it  flies, 
And  burns  to  ashes  in  the  skies. 
I    72    ] 


THE    OPEN   WINDOW 


THE   OPEN   WINDOW 

THE  old  house  by  the  lindens l 

Stood  silent  in  the  shade, 
And  on  the  gravelled  pathway 

The  light  and  shadow  played. 

I  saw  the  nursery  windows 

Wide  open  to  the  air; 
But  the  faces  of  the  children, 

They  were  no  longer  there. 

The  large  Newfoundland  house-dog 

Was  standing  by  the  door; 
He  looked  for  his  little  playmates, 

Who  would  return  no  more. 

They  walked  not  under  the  lindens, 

They  played  not  in  the  hall; 
But  shadow,  and  silence,  and  sadness 

Were  hanging  over  all. 

The  birds  sang  in  the  branches, 
With  sweet,  familiar  tone; 

1  The  old  house  by  the  lindens  is  what  was  known  as  the  Lechmere 
house  which  stood  on  Brattle  Street,  at  the  corner  of  Sparks  Street, 
in  Cambridge.  It  was  in  this  house  that  Baron  Riedesel  was  quartered 
as  prisoner  of  war  after  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne,  and  the  window- 
pane  used  to  be  shown  on  which  the  Baroness  wrote  her  name  with  a 
diamond. 

[    73    ] 


CHURCHYARD  AT  CAMBRIDGE 

But  the  voices  of  the  children 
Will  be  heard  in  dreams  alone ! 

And  the  boy  that  walked  beside  me, 

He  could  not  understand 
Why  closer  in  mine,  ah !  closer, 

I  pressed  his  warm,  soft  hand ! 


IN   THE   CHURCHYARD   AT   CAMBRIDGE 

IN  the  village  churchyard  she  lies, 
Dust  is  in  her  beautiful  eyes, 

No  more  she  breathes,  nor  feels,  nor  stirs; 
At  her  feet  and  at  her  head 
Lies  a  slave  to  attend  the  dead, 

But  their  dust  is  white  as  hers. 

Was  she,  a  lady  of  high  degree, 
So  much  in  love  with  the  vanity 

And  foolish  pomp  of  this  world  of  ours  ? 
Or  was  it  Christian  charity, 
And  lowliness  and  humility, 

The  richest  and  rarest  of  all  dowers  ? 

Who  shall  tell  us  ?    No  one  speaks ; 
No  color  shoots  into  those  cheeks, 

Either  of  anger  or  of  pride, 
At  the  rude  question  we  have  asked; 
Nor  will  the  mystery  be  unmasked 

By  those  who  are  sleeping  at  her  side. 
[    74    ] 


THE  BURIAL  OF  THE  POET 

Hereafter  ?  —  And  do  you  think  to  look 
On  the  terrible  pages  of  that  Book 

To  find  her  failings,  faults,  and  errors  ? 
Ah,  you  will  then  have  other  cares, 
In  your  own  shortcomings  and  despairs, 

In  your  own  secret  sins  and  terrors ! 


THE   BURIAL   OF  THE   POET1 

IN  the  old  churchyard  of  his  native  town, 
And  in  the  ancestral  tomb  beside  the  wall, 
We  laid  him  in  the  sleep  that  comes  to  all, 
And  left  him  to  his  rest  and  his  renown. 

The  snow  was  falling,  as  if  Heaven  dropped  down 
White  flowers  of  Paradise  to  strew  his  pall ;  — 
The  dead  around  him  seemed  to  wake,  and  call 
His  name,  as  worthy  of  so  white  a  crown. 

And  now  the  moon  is  shining  on  the  scene, 
And  the  broad  sheet  of  snow  is  written  o'er 
With  shadows  cruciform  of  leafless  trees, 

As  once  the  winding-sheet  of  Saladin 

With  chapters  of  the  Koran ;  but,  ah !  more 
Mysterious  and  triumphant  signs  are  these. 

1  The  Poet  was  Richard  Henry  Dana,  author  of  "The  Buccaneer' 
and  other  memorable  poems.   He  died  in  1879. 


THE    TWO    ANGELS 

THE   TWO   ANGELS1 

Two  angels,  one  of  Life  and  one  of  Death, 
Passed  o'er  our  village  as  the  morning  broke; 

The  dawn  was  on  their  faces,  and  beneath, 

The  sombre  houses  hearsed  with  plumes  of  smoke. 

Their  attitude  and  aspect  were  the  same, 
Alike  their  features  and  their  robes  of  white; 

But  one  was  crowned  with  amaranth,  as  with  flame, 
And  one  with  asphodels,  like  flakes  of  light. 

I  saw  them  pause  on  their  celestial  way; 

Then  said  I,  with  deep  fear  and  doubt  oppressed, 
"  Beat  not  so  loud,  my  heart,  lest  thou  betray 
The  place  where  thy  beloved  are  at  rest!" 

And  he  who  wore  the  crown  of  asphodels, 
Descending,  at  my  door  began  to  knock, 

And  my  soul  sank  within  me,  as  in  wells 

The  waters  sink  before  an  earthquake's  shock. 

I  recognized  the  nameless  agony, 

The  terror  and  the  tremor  and  the  pain, 

That  oft  before  had  filled  or  haunted  me, 

And  now  returned  with  threefold  strength  again. 

1  This  poem  was  written,  as  Mr.  Longfellow  told  in  a  letter,  "  on 
the  birth  of  my  younger  daughter,  and  the  death  of  the  young  and 
beautiful  wife  of  my  neighbor  and  friend,  the  poet  Lowell."  The 
date  was  the  twenty-seventh  of  October,  1853. 

[    76    ] 


THE  TWO  ANGELS 

The  door  I  opened  to  my  heavenly  guest, 

And  listened,  for  I  thought  I  heard  God's  voice; 

And,  knowing  whatsoe'er  he  sent  was  best, 
Dared  neither  to  lament  nor  to  rejoice. 

Then  with  a  smile,  that  filled  the  house  with  light, 
"My  errand  is  not  Death,  but  Life,"  he  said; 

And  ere  I  answered,  passing  out  of  sight, 
On  his  celestial  embassy  he  sped. 

'T  was  at  thy  door,  O  friend !  and  not  at  mine, 
The  angel  with  the  amaranthine  wreath, 

Pausing,  descended,  and  with  voice  divine 

Whispered  a  word  that  had  a  sound  like  Death. 

Then  fell  upon  the  house  a  sudden  gloom, 
A  shadow  on  those  features  fair  and  thin; 

And  softly,  from  that  hushed  and  darkened  room, 
Two  angels  issued,  where  but  one  went  in. 

All  is  of  God !   If  he  but  wave  his  hand, 

The  mists  collect,  the  rain  falls  thick  and  loud, 

Till,  with  a  smile  of  light  on  sea  and  land, 
Lo!  he  looks  back  from  the  departing  cloud. 

Angels  of  Life  and  Death  alike  are  his; 

Without  his  leave  they  pass  no  threshold  o'er; 
Who,  then,  would  wish  or  dare,  believing  this, 

Against  his  messengers  to  shut  the  door? 
[    77    ] 


RESIGNATION 

RESIGNATION  * 

THERE  is  no  flock,  however  watched  and  tended, 

But  one  dead  lamb  is  there! 
There  is  no  fireside,  howsoe'er  defended, 

But  has  one  vacant  chair! 

The  air  is  full  of  farewells  to  the  dying, 

And  mournings  for  the  dead; 
The  heart  of  Rachel,  for  her  children  crying, 

Will  not  be  comforted! 

Let  us  be  patient!   These  severe  afflictions 

Not  from  the  ground  arise, 
But  oftentimes  celestial  benedictions 

Assume  this  dark  disguise. 

We  see  but  dimly  through  the  mists  and  vapors; 

Amid  these  earthly  damps 
What  seem  to  us  but  sad,  funereal  tapers 

May  be  heaven's  distant  lamps. 

There  is  no  Death !   What  seems  so  is  transition ; 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  elysian, 

Whose  portal  we  call  Death. 

1  Written  in  the  autumn  of  1848,  after  the  death  of  his  little  daughter 
Fanny.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  poet's  diary,  under  date  of  Novem- 
ber 12,  in  which  he  says:  "I  feel  very  sad  to-day.  I  miss  very  much 
my  dear  little  Fanny.  An  inappeasable  longing  to  see  her  comes  over 
me  at  times,  which  I  can  hardly  control." 

[    78    ] 


RESIGNATION 

She  is  not  dead,  —  the  child  of  our  affection,  — 

But  gone  unto  that  school 
Where  she  no  longer  needs  our  poor  protection, 

And  Christ  himself  doth  rule. 

In  that  great  cloister's  stillness  and  seclusion, 

By  guardian  angels  led, 
Safe  from  temptation,  safe  from  sin's  pollution, 

She  lives,  whom  we  call  dead. 

Day  after  day  we  think  what  she  is  doing 

In  those  bright  realms  of  air; 
Year  after  year,  her  tender  steps  pursuing, 

Behold  her  grown  more  fair. 

Thus  do  we  walk  with  her,  and  keep  unbroken 

The  bond  which  nature  gives, 
Thinking  that  our  remembrance,  though  unspoken, 

May  reach  her  where  she  lives. 

Not  as  a  child  shall  we  again  behold  her; 

For  when  with  raptures  wild 
In  our  embraces  we  again  enfold  her, 

She  will  not  be  a  child; 

But  a  fair  maiden,  in  her  Father's  mansion, 

Clothed  with  celestial  grace; 
And  beautiful  with  all  the  soul's  expansion 

Shall  we  behold  her  face. 
[    79    ] 


SEASIDE   AND   FIRESIDE 

And  though  at  times  impetuous  with  emotion 

And  anguish  long  suppressed, 
The  swelling  heart  heaves  moaning  like  the  ocean, 

That  cannot  be  at  rest,  — 

We  will  be  patient,  and  assuage  the  feeling 

We  may  not  wholly  stay; 
By  silence  sanctifying,  not  concealing, 

The  grief  that  must  have  way. 


DEDICATION  TO  THE  VOLUME  ENTITLED 
«  THE  SEASIDE  AND  THE  FIRESIDE  " 

As  one  who,  walking  in  the  twilight  gloom, 
Hears  round  about  him  voices  as  it  darkens, 

And  seeing  not  the  forms  from  which  they  come, 
Pauses  from  time  to  time,  and  turns  and  hearkens ; 

So  walking  here  in  twilight,  O  my  friends ! 

I  hear  your  voices,  softened  by  the  distance, 
And  pause,  and  turn  to  listen,  as  each  sends 

His  words  of  friendship,  comfort,  and  assistance. 

If  any  thought  of  mine,  or  sung  or  told, 
Has  ever  given  delight  or  consolation, 

Ye  have  repaid  me  back  a  thousand-fold, 
By  every  friendly  sign  and  salutation. 

Thanks  for  the  sympathies  that  ye  have  shown! 
Thanks  for  each  kindly  word,  each  silent  token, 
[    80    ] 


SEASIDE  AND  FIRESIDE 

That  teaches  me,  when  seeming  most  alone, 

Friends  are  around  us,  though  no  word  be  spoken. 

Kind  messages,  that  pass  from  land  to  land; 

Kind  letters,  that  betray  the  heart's  deep  history, 
In  which  we  feel  the  pressure  of  a  hand,  — 

One  touch  of  fire,  —  and  all  the  rest  is  mystery! 

The  pleasant  books,  that  silently  among 

Our  household  treasures  take  familiar  places, 

And  are  to  us  as  if  a  living  tongue 

Spake  from  the  printed  leaves  or  pictured  faces! 

Perhaps  on  earth  I  never  shall  behold, 

With  eye  of  sense,  your  outward  form  and  semblance; 
Therefore  to  me  ye  never  will  grow  old, 

But  live  forever  young  in  my  remembrance ! 

Never  grow  old,  nor  change,  nor  pass  away! 

Your  gentle  voices  will  flow  on  forever, 
When  life  grows  bare  and  tarnished  with  decay, 

As  through  a  leafless  landscape  flows  a  river. 

Not  chance  of  birth  or  place  has  made  us  friends, 
Being  oftentimes  of  different  tongues  and  nations, 

But  the  endeavor  for  the  selfsame  ends, 

With  the  same  hopes,  and  fears,  and  aspirations. 

Therefore  I  hope  to  join  your  seaside  walk, 
Saddened,  and  mostly  silent,  with  emotion; 
[    81    ] 


MY   LOST   YOUTH 

Not  interrupting  with  intrusive  talk 

The  grand,  majestic  symphonies  of  ocean. 

Therefore  I  hope,  as  no  unwelcome  guest, 

At  your  warm  fireside,  when  the  lamps  are  lighted, 

To  have  my  place  reserved  among  the  rest, 
Nor  stand  as  one  unsought  and  uninvited ! 


MY   LOST   YOUTH 

OFTEN  I  think  of  the  beautiful  town 

That  is  seated  by  the  sea;  * 
Often  in  thought  go  up  and  down 
The  pleasant  streets  of  that  dear  old  town, 
And  my  youth  comes  back  to  me. 
And  a  verse  of  a  Lapland  song 
Is  haunting  my  memory  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

1  Under  the  date  of  March  29,  1855,  Longfellow  notes  in  his  Diary: 
M  At  night,  as  I  lie  in  bed,  a  poem  comes  into  my  mind  —  a  memory 
of  Portland,  my  native  town,  the  city  by  the  sea."  And  the  next  day 
he  makes  the  following  entry:  "Wrote  the  poem,  and  am  rather 
pleased  with  the  bringing  in  of  the  two  lines  of  the  old  Lapland  song 

A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will 

And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

The  lines  are  to  be  found  in  a  Latin  treatise  entitled  Lapponea, 
published  in  1674,  being  a  description  of  Lapland  and  its  people, 
by  Johannes  Scheffer,  Professor  at  Upsala.  Chapter  xxv  relates  to 
the  marriage  customs  of  the  Lapps,  and  a  nuptial  song  is  given  in 
the  original  Lappish  in  which  the  words  occur  that  are  translated  as 
follows:  "Puerorum  voluntas,  voluntas  venti,  juvenum  cogitationes, 
k>ngae  cogitationes." 

[    82    ] 


MY  LOST  YOUTH 

I  can  see  the  shadowy  lines  of  its  trees, 

And  catch,  in  sudden  gleams, 
The  sheen  of  the  far-surrounding  seas, 
And  islands  that  were  the  Hesperides 
Of  all  my  boyish  dreams. 
And  the  burden  of  that  old  song, 
It  murmurs  and  whispers  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

I  remember  the  black  wharves  and  the  slips, 

And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free; 
And  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips, 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships, 
And  the  magic  of  the  sea. 

And  the  voice  of  that  wayward  song 
Is  singing  and  saying  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

I  remember  the  bulwarks  by  the  shore, 

And  the  fort  upon  the  hill; 
The  sunrise  gun,  with  its  hollow  roar, 
The  drum-beat  repeated  o'er  and  o'er, 
And  the  bugle  wild  and  shrill. 
And  the  music  of  that  old  song 
Throbs  in  my  memory  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts.' 

I    83    ] 


MY   LOST   YOUTH 

I  remember  the  sea-fight l  far  away, 

How  it  thundered  o'er  the  tide! 
And  the  dead  captains,  as  they  lay 
In  their  graves,  overlooking  the  tranquil  bay 
Where  they  in  battle  died. 
And  the  sound  of  that  mournful  song 
Goes  through  me  with  a  thrill: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

I  can  see  the  breezy  dome  of  groves, 
The  shadows  of  Deering's  Woods; 
And  the  friendships  old  and  the  early  loves 
Come  back  with  a  Sabbath  sound,  as  of  doves 
In  quiet  neighborhoods. 

And  the  verse  of  that  sweet  old  song, 
It  flutters  and  murmurs  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

I  remember  the  gleams  and  glooms  that  dart 

Across  the  school-boy's  brain; 
The  song  and  the  silence  in  the  heart, 
That  in  part  are  prophecies,  and  in  part 

Are  longings  wild  and  vain. 

And  the  voice  of  that  fitful  song 

1  In  1813,  when  Longfellow  was  a  boy  of  six,  there  was  an  engage- 
ment off  the  harbor  of  Portland  between  the  American  brig  Enter- 
prise and  the  English  brig  Boxer.  Both  captains  were  slain,  but  the 
Enterprise  won  the  day,  and  after  a  fight  of  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
came  into  the  harbor,  bringing  the  Boxer  with  her. 
t  84  ] 


MY   LOST   YOUTH 

Sings  on,  and  is  never  still- 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

There  are  things  of  which  I  may  not  speak; 

There  are  dreams  that  cannot  die; 
There  are  thoughts  that  make  the  strong  heart  weak, 
And  bring  a  pallor  into  the  cheek, 
And  a  mist  before  the  eye. 

And  the  words  of  that  fatal  song 
Come  over  me  like  a  chill: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

Strange  to  me  now  are  the  forms  I  meet, 

When  I  visit  the  dear  old  town; 
But  the  native  air  is  pure  and  sweet, 
And  the  trees  that  o'ershadow  each  well-known  street, 
As  they  balance  up  and  down, 
Are  singing  the  beautiful  song, 
Are  sighing  and  whispering  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

And  Deering's  Woods  are  fresh  and  fair, 

And  with  joy  that  is  almost  pain 
My  heart  goes  back  to  wander  there, 
And  among  the  dreams  of  the  days  that  were, 
I  find  my  lost  youth  again. 
And  the  strange  and  beautiful  song, 
[    85    ] 


BIRTHDAY    OF   AGASSIZ 

The  groves  are  repeating  it  still: 
"A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 


THE   FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY  OF  AGASSIZ1 

MAY  28,  1857. 
IT  was  fifty  years  ago 

In  the  pleasant  month  of  May, 
In  the  beautiful  Pays  de  Vaud, 

A  child  in  its  cradle  lay. 

And  Nature,  the  old  nurse,  took 

The  child  upon  her  knee, 
Saying:  "Here  is  a  story-book 

Thy  Father  has  written  for  thee." 

"  Come,  wander  with  me,"  she  said, 

"Into  regions  yet  untrod; 
And  read  what  is  still  unread 
In  the  manuscripts  of  God." 

And  he  wandered  away  and  away 
With  Nature,  the  dear  old  nurse, 

Who  sang  to  him  night  and  day 
The  rhymes  of  the  universe. 

1  Louis  John  Rudolph  Agassiz,  the  great  naturalist  and  teacher, 
was  born  in  Switzerland,  May  28,  1807,  and  died  at  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  December  14,  1873. 

[    86    ] 


HAWTHORNE 

And  whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 

Or  his  heart  began  to  fail, 
She  would  sing  a  more  wonderful  song, 

Or  tell  a  more  marvellous  tale. 

So  she  keeps  him  still  a  child, 

And  will  not  let  him  go, 
Though  at  times  his  heart  beats  wild 

For  the  beautiful  Pays  de  Vaud; 

Though  at  times  he  hears  in  his  dreams 

The  Ranz  des  Vaches  of  old, 
And  the  rush  of  mountain  streams 

From  glaciers  clear  and  cold; 

And  the  mother  at  home  says,  "Hark! 

For  his  voice  I  listen  and  yearn; 
It  is  growing  late  and  dark, 

And  my  boy  does  not  return!" 

HAWTHORNE 

MAY  23,  1864.1 

How  beautiful  it  was,  that  one  bright  day 
In  the  long  week  of  rain! 

1  The  date  is  that  of  the  burial  of  Hawthorne.  The  poem  was  writ- 
ten just  a  month  later.  Mr.  Longfellow  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields  :  "I  have 
only  tried  to  describe  the  state  of  mind  I  was  in  on  that  day.  Did  you 
not  feel  so  likewise  ?  "  In  sending  a  copy  of  the  lines  at  the  same  time 
to  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  he  wrote:  "I  feel  how  imperfect  and  inadequate 
they  are;  but  I  trust  you  will  pardon  their  deficiencies  for  the  love 
I  bear  his  memory." 

[    87    ] 


HAWTHORNE 

Though  all  its  splendor  could  not  chase  away 
The  omnipresent  pain. 

The  lovely  town  was  white  with  apple-blooms, 

And  the  great  elms  overhead 
Dark  shadows  wove  on  their  aerial  looms 

Shot  through  with  golden  thread. 

Across  the  meadows,  by  the  gray  old  manse, 

The  historic  river  flowed: 
I  was  as  one  who  wanders  in  a  trance, 

Unconscious  of  his  road. 

The  faces  of  familiar  friends  seemed  strange; 

Their  voices  I  could  hear, 
And  yet  the  words  they  uttered  seemed  to  change 

Their  meaning  to  my  ear. 

For  the  one  face  I  looked  for  was  not  there, 

The  one  low  voice  was  mute; 
Only  an  unseen  presence  filled  the  air, 

And  baffled  my  pursuit. 

Now  I  look  back,  and  meadow,  manse,  and  stream 

Dimly  my  thought  defines; 
I  only  see  —  a  dream  within  a  dream  — 

The  hill-top  hearsed  with  pines. 

I  only  hear  above  his  place  of  rest 
Their  tender  undertone, 
[    88    ] 


THREE   FRIENDS   OF   MINE 

The  infinite  longings  of  a  troubled  breast, 
The  voice  so  like  his  own. 


There  in  seclusion  and  remote  from  men 

The  wizard  hand  lies  cold, 
Which  at  its  topmost  speed  let  fall  the  pen, 

And  left  the  tale  half  told. 

Ah!  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power 

And  the  lost  clew  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 

Unfinished  must  remain! 


THREE   FRIENDS   OF   MINE 


WHEN  I  remember  them,  those  friends  of  mine, 
Who  are  no  longer  here,  the  noble  three, 
Who  half  my  life  were  more  than  friends  to  me. 
And  whose  discourse  was  like  a  generous  wine, 

I  most  of  all  remember  the  divine 

Something,  that  shone  in  them,  and  made  us  see 
The  archetypal  man,  and  what  might  be 
The  amplitude  of  Nature's  first  design. 

In  vain  I  stretch  my  hands  to  clasp  their  hands; 

1  These  sonnets  record  the  poet's  friendship  with  Cornelius  Con- 
way  Felton,  once  Professor  of  Greek,  afterward  President  of  Harvard 
College,  Louis  Agassiz  and  Charles  Sumner.  The  second  and  third 
sonnets  were  written  at  Nahant,  where  both  Longfellow  and  Agassiz 
had  cottages. 

[    89    ] 


THREE    FRIENDS    OF    MINE 

I  cannot  find  them.    Nothing  now  is  left 
But  a  majestic  memory.    They  meanwhile 
Wander  together  in  Elysian  lands, 

Perchance  remembering  me,  who  am  bereft 

Of  their  dear  presence,  and,  remembering,  smile. 

ii 

In  Attica  thy  birthplace  should  have  been, 
Or  the  Ionian  Isles,  or  where  the  seas 
Encircle  in  their  arms  the  Cyclades, 
So  wholly  Greek  wast  thou  in  thy  serene 

And  childlike  joy  of  life,  O  Philhellene! 

Around  thee  would  have  swarmed  the  Attic  bees; 
Homer  had  been  thy  friend,  or  Socrates, 
And  Plato  welcomed  thee  to  his  demesne. 

For  thee  old  legends  breathed  historic  breath; 
Thou  sawest  Poseidon  in  the  purple  sea, 
And  in  the  sunset  Jason's  fleece  of  gold ! 

Oh,  what  hadst  thou  to  do  with  cruel  Death, 
Who  wast  so  full  of  life,  or  Death  with  thee, 
That  thou  shouldst  die  before  thou  hadst  grown  old ! 

in 

I  stand  again  on  the  familiar  shore, 
And  hear  the  waves  of  the  distracted  sea 
Piteously  calling  and  lamenting  thee, 
And  waiting  restless  at  thy  cottage  door. 
The  rocks,  the  seaweed  on  the  ocean  floor, 
The  willows  in  the  meadow,  and  the  free 
Wild  winds  of  the  Atlantic  welcome  me; 
[    90    ] 


THREE  FRIENDS  OF  MINE 

Then  why  shouldst  thou  be  dead,  and  come  no  more  ? 
Ah,  why  shouldst  thou  be  dead,  when  common  men 

Are  busy  with  their  trivial  affairs, 

Having  and  holding  ?     Why,  when  thou  hadst  read 
Nature's  mysterious  manuscript,  and  then 

Wast  ready  to  reveal  the  truth  it  bears, 

Why  art  thou  silent  ?    Why  shouldst  thou  be  dead  ? 

IV 

River,  that  stealest  with  such  silent  pace 
Around  the  City  of  the  Dead,1  where  lies 
A  friend  who  bore  thy  name,  and  whom  these  eyes 
Shall  see  no  more  in  his  accustomed  place, 

Linger  and  fold  him  in  thy  soft  embrace, 

And  say  good  night,  for  now  the  western  skies 
Are  red  with  sunset,  and  gray  mists  arise 
Like  damps  that  gather  on  a  dead  man's  face. 

Good  night !  good  night !  as  we  so  oft  have  said 
Beneath  this  roof  at  midnight,  in  the  days 
That  are  no  more,  and  shall  no  more  return. 

Thou  hast  but  taken  thy  lamp  and  gone  to  bed; 
I  stay  a  little  longer,  as  one  stays 
To  cover  up  the  embers  that  still  burn. 

v 

The  doors  are  all  wide  open;  at  the  gate 
The  blossomed  lilacs  counterfeit  a  blaze, 
And  seem  to  warm  the  air;  a  dreamy  haze 
Hangs  o'er  the  Brighton  meadows  like  a  fate, 
1  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery  lies  near  the  river  bank. 


THE    HERONS    OF   ELMWOOD 

And  on  their  margin,  with  sea-tides  elate, 
The  flooded  Charles,  as  in  the  happier  days, 
Writes  the  last  letter  of  his  name,  and  stays 
His  restless  steps,  as  if  compelled  to  wait. 

I  also  wait;  but  they  will  come  no  more, 
Those  friends  of  mine,  whose  presence  satisfied 
The  thirst  and  hunger  of  my  heart.    Ah  me  !- 

They  have  forgotten  the  pathway  to  my  door! 
Something  is  gone  from  nature  since  they  died, 
And  summer  is  not  summer,  nor  can  be. 


THE   HERONS   OF  ELMWOOD 

WARM  and  still  is  the  summer  night, 
As  here  by  the  river's  brink  I  wander; 

White  overhead  are  the  stars,  and  white 
The  glimmering  lamps  on  the  hillside  yonder. 

Silent  are  all  the  sounds  of  day; 

Nothing  I  hear  but  the  chirp  of  crickets, 
And  the  cry  of  the  herons  winging  their  way 

O'er  the  poet's  house  in  the  Elmwood  1  thickets. 

Call  to  him,  herons,  as  slowly  you  pass 
To  your  roosts  in  the  haunts  of  the  exiled  thrushes, 

Sing  him  the  song  of  the  green  morass, 

And  the  tides  that  water  the  reeds  and  rushes. 

1  Elmwood,  a  short  distance  from  Ixmgfellow's  house,  was  the 
home  of  his  brother  poet  and  friend,  James  Russell  Lowell. 

[    92    ] 


THE   HERONS  OF  ELMWOOD 

Sing  him  the  mystical  Song  of  the  Hern, 
And  the  secret  that  baffles  our  utmost  seeking; 

For  only  a  sound  of  lament  we  discern, 

And  cannot  interpret  the  words  you  are  speaking. 

Sing  of  the  air,  and  the  wild  delight 

Of  wings  that  uplift  and  winds  that  uphold  you, 
The  joy  of  freedom,  the  rapture  of  flight 

Through  the  drift  of  the  floating  mists  that  enfold  you ; 

Of  the  landscape  lying  so  far  below, 

With  its  towns  and  rivers  and  desert  places; 

And  the  splendor  of  light  above,  and  the  glow 
Of  the  limitless,  blue,  ethereal  spaces. 

Ask  him  if  songs  of  the  Troubadours, 
Or  of  Minnesingers  in  old  black-letter, 

Sound  in  his  ears  more  sweet  than  yours, 

And  if  yours  are  not  sweeter  and  wilder  and  better. 

Sing  to  him,  say  to  him,  here  at  his  gate, 

Where  the  boughs  of  the  stately  elms  are  meeting, 

Some  one  hath  lingered  to  meditate, 

And  send  him  unseen  this  friendly  greeting; 

That  many  another  hath  done  the  same, 

Though  not  by  a  sound  was  the  silence  broken; 

The  surest  pledge  of  a  deathless  name 

Is  the  silent  homage  of  thoughts  unspoken. 
[    93    ] 


THE    CHILDREN'S   HOUR 


THE   CHILDREN'S   HOUR 

BETWEEN  the  dark  and  the  daylight, 
When  the  night  is  beginning  to  lower, 

Comes  a  pause  in  the  day's  occupations, 
That  is  known  as  the  Children's  Hour. 

I  hear  in  the  chamber  above  me 

The  patter  of  little  feet, 
The  sound  of  a  door  that  is  opened, 

And  voices  soft  and  sweet. 

From  my  study  I  see  in  the  lamplight, 
Descending  the  broad  hall  stair, 

Grave  Alice,  and  laughing  AUegra, 
And  Edith  with  golden  hair. 

A  whisper,  and  then  a  silence: 
Yet  I  know  by  their  merry  eyes, 

They  are  plotting  and  planning  together 
To  take  me  by  surprise. 

A  sudden  rush  from  the  stairway, 
A  sudden  raid  from  the  hall! 

By  three  doors  left  unguarded 
They  enter  my  castle  wall! 

They  climb  up  into  my  turret, 

O'er  the  arms  and  back  of  my  chair; 
[    94    ] 


THE   CHILDREN'S  HOUR 

If  I  try  to  escape,  they  surround  me; 
They  seem  to  be  everywhere. 

They  almost  devour  me  with  kisses, 
Their  arms  about  me  entwine, 

Till  I  think  of  the  Bishop  of  Bingen  * 
In  his  Mouse-Tower  on  the  Rhine! 

Do  you  think,  O  blue-eyed  banditti, 
Because  you  have  scaled  the  wall, 

Such  an  old  moustache  as  I  am 
Is  not  a  match  for  you  all  ? 

I  have  you  fast  in  my  fortress, 

And  will  not  let  you  depart, 
But  put  you  down  into  the  dungeon 

In  the  round-tower  of  my  heart. 

And  there  will  I  keep  you  forever, 

Yes,  forever  and  a  day, 
Till  the  walls  shall  crumble  to  ruin, 

And  moulder  in  dust  away! 

1  Near  Bingen  on  the  Rhine  is  a  little  square  Mouse-Tower,  so 
called  from  an  old  word  meaning  toll,  since  it  was  used  as  a  toll -house; 
but  there  is  an  old  tradition  that  a  certain  Bishop  Hatto,  who  had 
been  cruel  to  the  people,  was  attacked  in  the  tower  by  a  great  army 
of  rats  and  mice.  See  Souther's  famous  poem,  Bishop  Hatto. 


[    95    ] 


TRAVELS   BY   THE   FIRESIDE 


TRAVELS   BY  THE   FIRESIDE 

THE  ceaseless  rain  is  falling  fast, 

And  yonder  gilded  vane, 
Immovable  for  three  days  past, 

Points  to  the  misty  main. 

It  drives  me  in  upon  myself 

And  to  the  fireside  gleams, 
To  pleasant  books  that  crowd  my  shelf, 

And  still  more  pleasant  dreams. 

I  read  whatever  bards  have  sung 

Of  lands  beyond  the  sea, 
And  the  bright  days  when  I  was  young 

Come  thronging  back  to  me. 

In  fancy  I  can  hear  again 

The  Alpine  torrent's  roar, 
The  mule-bells  on  the  hills  of  Spain, 

The  sea  at  Elsinore. 

I  see  the  convent's  gleaming  wall 
Rise  from  its  groves  of  pine, 

And  towers  of  old  cathedrals  tall, 
And  castles  by  the  Rhine. 

I  journey  on  by  park  and  spire, 
Beneath  centennial  trees, 
[    96    ] 


AMALFI 

Through  fields  with  poppies  all  on  fire, 
And  gleams  of  distant  seas. 

I  fear  no  more  the  dust  and  heat, 

No  more  I  feel  fatigue, 
While  journeying  with  another's  feet 

O'er  many  a  lengthening  league. 

Let  others  traverse  sea  and  land, 
And  toil  through  various  climes, 

I  turn  the  world  round  with  my  hand 
Reading  these  poets'  rhymes. 

From  them  I  learn  whatever  lies 
Beneath  each  changing  zone, 

And  see,  when  looking  with  their  eyes, 
Better  than  with  mine  own. 


AMALFI 

SWEET  the  memory  is  to  me 

Of  a  land  beyond  the  sea, 

Where  the  waves  and  mountains  meet, 

Where  amid  her  mulberry-trees 

Sits  Amalfi  in  the  heat, 

Bathing  ever  her  white  feet 

In  the  tideless  summer  seas. 

In  the  middle  of  the  town, 
From  its  fountains  in  the  hills, 


AMALFI 

Tumbling  through  the  narrow  gorge, 
The  Canneto  rushes  down, 
Turns  the  great  wheels  of  the  mills, 
Lifts  the  hammers  of  the  forge. 

T  is  a  stairway,  not  a  street, 
That  ascends  the  deep  ravine, 
Where  the  torrent  leaps  between 
Rocky  walls  that  almost  meet. 
Toiling  up  from  stair  to  stair 
Peasant  girls  their  burdens  bear; 
Sunburnt  daughters  of  the  soil, 
Stately  figures  tall  and  straight, 
What  inexorable  fate 
Dooms  them  to  this  life  of  toil  ? 

Lord  of  vineyards  and  of  lands, 
Far  above  the  convent  stands. 
On  its  terraced  walk  aloof 
Leans  a  monk  with  folded  hands. 
Placid,  satisfied,  serene, 
Looking  down  upon  the  scene 
Over  wall  and  red-tiled  roof; 
Wondering  unto  what  good  end 
All  this  toil  and  traffic  tend, 
And  why  all  men  cannot  be 
Free  from  care  and  free  from  pain, 
And  the  sordid  love  of  gain, 
And  as  indolent  as  he. 

[    98    ] 


AMALFI 

Where  are  now  the  freighted  barks 
From  the  marts  of  east  and  west  ? 
Where  the  knights  in  iron  sarks 
Journeying  to  the  Holy  Land, 
Glove  of  steel  upon  the  hand, 
Cross  of  crimson  on  the  breast  ? 
Where  the  pomp  of  camp  and  court  ? 
Where  the  pilgrims  with  their  prayers  ? 
Where  the  merchants  with  their  wares, 
And  their  gallant  brigantines 
Safely  sailing  into  port 
Chased  by  corsair  Algerines  ? 

Vanished  like  a  fleet  of  cloud, 
Like  a  passing  trumpet-blast, 
Are  those  splendors  of  the  past, 
And  the  commerce  and  the  crowd! 
Fathoms  deep  beneath  the  seas 
Lie  the  ancient  wharves  and  quays, 
Swallowed  by  the  engulfing  waves; 
Silent  streets  and  vacant  halls, 
Ruined  roofs  and  towers  and  walls; 
Hidden  from  all  mortal  eyes 
Deep  the  sunken  city  lies: 
Even  cities  have  their  graves! 

This  is  an  enchanted  land! 
Round  the  headlands  far  away 
Sweeps  the  blue  Salernian  bay 

[    99    ] 


AMALFI 

With  its  sickle  of  white  sand: 
Further  still  and  furthermost 
On  the  dim  discovered  coast 
Psestum  with  its  ruins  lies, 
And  its  roses  all  in  bloom 
Seem  to  tinge  the  fatal  skies 
Of  that  lonely  land  of  doom. 

On  his  terrace,  high  in  air, 
Nothing  doth  the  good  monk  care 
For  such  worldly  themes  as  these. 
From  the  garden  just  below 
Little  puffs  of  perfume  blow, 
And  a  sound  is  in  his  ears 
Of  the  murmur  of  the  bees 
In  the  shining  chestnut-trees; 
Nothing  else  he  heeds  or  hears. 
All  the  landscape  seems  to  swoon 
In  the  happy  afternoon; 
Slowly  o'er  his  senses  creep 
The  encroaching  waves  of  sleep, 
And  he  sinks  as  sank  the  town, 
Unresisting,  fathoms  down, 
Into  caverns  cool  and  deep! 

Walled  about  with  drifts  of  snow, 
Hearing  the  fierce  north-wind  blow. 
Seeing  all  the  landscape  white 
And  the  river  cased  in  ice, 
Comes  this  memory  of  delight, 

t   100   ] 


,CASTLES   IN   SPAIN 

Comes  this  vision  unto  me 

Of  a  long-lost  Paradise 

In  the  land  beyond  the  sea. 

CASTLES   IN   SPAIN 

How  much  of  my  young  heart,  O  Spain, 
Went  out  to  thee  in  days  of  yore! 

What  dreams  romantic  filled  my  brain, 

And  summoned  back  to  life  again 

The  Paladins  of  Charlemagne, 
The  Cid  Campeador! 

And  shapes  more  shadowy  than  these, 

In  the  dim  twilight  half  revealed; 
Phoenician  galleys  on  the  seas, 
The  Roman  camps  like  hives  of  bees, 
The  Goth  uplifting  from  his  knees 
Pelayo  on  his  shield. 

It  was  these  memories  perchance, 
From  annals  of  remotest  eld, 

That  lent  the  colors  of  romance 

To  every  trivial  circumstance, 

And  changed  the  form  and  countenance 
Of  all  that  I  beheld. 

Old  towns,  whose  history  lies  hid 
In  monkish  chronicle  or  rhyme,  — 

[   101   ] 


CASTLES   IN   SPAIN 

Burgos,  the  birthplace  of  the  Cid, 
Zamora  and  Valladolid, 
Toledo,  built  and  walled  amid 
The  wars  of  Wamba's  time; 

The  long,  straight  line  of  the  highway, 
The  distant  town  that  seems  so  near, 
The  peasants  in  the  fields,  that  stay 
Their  toil  to  cross  themselves  and  pray, 
When  from  the  belfry  at  midday 
The  Angelus  they  hear; 

White  crosses  in  the  mountain  pass, 

Mules  gay  with  tassels,  the  loud  din 
Of  muleteers,  the  tethered  ass 
That  crops  the  dusty  wayside  grass, 
And  cavaliers  with  spurs  of  brass 
Alighting  at  the  inn; 

White  hamlets  hidden  in  fields  of  wheat, 

White  cities  slumbering  by  the  sea, 
White  sunshine  flooding  square  and  street, 
Dark  mountain  ranges,  at  whose  feet 
The  river  beds  are  dry  with  heat,  — 
All  was  a  dream  to  me. 

Yet  something  sombre  and  severe 

O'er  the  enchanted  landscape  reigned; 
A  terror  in  the  atmosphere 
As  if  King  Philip  listened  near, 
[    102    ] 


CASTLES   IN   SPAIN 

Or  Torquemada,  the  austere, 
His  ghostly  sway  maintained. 

The  softer  Andalusian  skies 

Dispelled  the  sadness  and  the  gloom; 
There  Cadiz  by  the  seaside  lies, 
And  Seville's  orange-orchards  rise, 
Making  the  land  a  paradise 

Of  beauty  and  of  bloom. 

There  Cordova  is  hidden  among 

The  palm,  the  olive,  and  the  vine; 
Gem  of  the  South,  by  poets  sung, 
And  in  whose  mosque  Almanzor  hung 
As  lamps  the  bells  that  once  had  rung 
At  Compostella's  shrine. 

But  over  all  the  rest  supreme, 

The  star  of  stars,  the  cynosure, 
The  artist's  and  the  poet's  theme, 
The  young  man's  vision,  the  old  man's  dream, 
Granada  by  its  winding  stream, 

The  city  of  the  Moor! 

And  there  the  Alhambra  still  recalls 

Aladdin's  palace  of  delight: 
Allah  il  Allah!  through  its  halls 
Whispers  the  fountain  as  it  falls, 
The  Darro  darts  beneath  its  walls, 

The  hills  with  snow  are  white. 
[    103    ] 


FROM   MY   ARM-CHAIR 

Ah  yes,  the  hills  are  white  with  snow, 
And  cold  with  blasts  that  bite  and  freeze; 

But  in  the  happy  vale  below 

The  orange  and  pomegranate  grow, 

And  wafts  of  air  toss  to  and  fro 
The  blossoming  almond  trees. 

The  Vega  cleft  by  the  Xenil, 

The  fascination  and  allure 
Of  the  sweet  landscape  chains  the  will; 
The  traveller  lingers  on  the  hill, 
His  parted  lips  are  breathing  still 

The  last  sigh  of  the  Moor. 

How  like  a  ruin  overgrown 

With  flowers  that  hide  the  rents  of  time, 
Stands  now  the  Past  that  I  have  known; 
Castles  in  Spain,  not  built  of  stone 
But  of  white  summer  clouds,  and  blown 

Into  this  little  mist  of  rhyme ! 


FROM   MY   ARM-CHAIR 

TO   THE   CHILDREN   OF  CAMBRIDGE 

WHO  PRESENTED  TO  ME,  ON  MY  SEVENTY-SECOND  BHITHDAY,  FEB- 
RUARY 27,  1879,  THIS  CHAIR  MADE  FROM  THE  WOOD  OF  THE  VIL- 
LAGE BLACKSMITH'S  CHESTNUT-TREE 

AM  I  a  king,  that  I  should  call  my  own 
This  splendid  ebon  throne  ? 
[    104    ] 


FROM    MY  ARM-CHAIR 

Or  by  what  reason,  or  what  right  divine, 
Can  I  proclaim  it  mine  ? 

Only,  perhaps,  by  right  divine  of  song 

It  may  to  me  belong; 
Only  because  the  spreading  chestnut-tree 

Of  old  was  sung  by  me. 

Well  I  remember  it  in  all  its  prime 

When  in  the  summer-time 
The  affluent  foliage  of  its  branches  made 

A  cavern  of  cool  shade. 

There,  by  the  blacksmith's  forge,  beside  the  street, 

Its  blossoms  white  and  sweet 
Enticed  the  bees,  until  it  seemed  alive, 

And  murmured  like  a  hive. 

And  when  the  winds  of  autumn,  with  a  shout, 

Tossed  its  great  arms  about, 
The  shining  chestnuts,  bursting  from  the  sheath, 

Dropped  to  the  ground  beneath. 

And  now  some  fragments  of  its  branches  bare, 

Shaped  as  a  stately  chair, 
Have  by  my  hearthstone  found  a  home  at  last, 

And  whisper  of  the  past. 

The  Danish  king  could  not  in  all  his  pride 
Repel  the  ocean  tide, 

[     105     ] 


FROM  MY  ARM-CHAIR 

But,  seated  in  this  chair,  I  can  in  rhyme 
Roll  back  the  tide  of  Time. 


I  see  again,  as  one  in  vision  sees, 

The  blossoms  and  the  bees, 
And  hear  the  children's  voices  shout  and  call, 

And  the  brown  chestnuts  fall. 

I  see  the  smithy  with  its  fires  aglow, 

I  hear  the  bellows  blow, 
And  the  shrill  hammers  on  the  anvil  beat 

The  iron  white  with  heat! 

And  thus,  dear  children,  have  ye  made  for  me 

This  day  a  jubilee, 
And  to  my  more  than  threescore  years  and  ten 

Brought  back  my  youth  again. 

The  heart  hath  its  own  memory,  like  the  mind, 

And  in  it  are  enshrined 
The  precious  keepsakes,  into  which  is  wrought 

The  giver's  loving  thought. 

Only  your  love  and  your  remembrance  could 

Give  life  to  this  dead  wood, 
And  make  these  branches,  leafless  now  so  long, 

Blossom  again  in  song. 


[    106    ] 


POSSIBILITIES-CROSS  OF  SNOW 

POSSIBILITIES 

WHERE  are  the  Poets,  unto  whom  belong 

The  Olympian  heights;    whose  singing  shafts  were 

sent 

Straight  to  the  mark,  and  not  from  bows  half  bent 
But  with  the  utmost  tension  of  the  thong  ? 

Where  are  the  stately  argosies  of  song, 

Whose  rushing  keels  made  music  as  they  went 
Sailing  in  search  of  some  new  continent, 
With  all  sail  set,  and  steady  winds  and  strong  ? 

Perhaps  there  lives  some  dreamy  boy,  untaught 
In  schools,  some  graduate  of  the  field  or  street 
Who  shall  become  a  master  of  the  art, 

An  admiral  sailing  the  high  seas  of  thought, 
Fearless  and  first,  and  steering  with  his  fleet 
For  lands  not  yet  laid  down  in  any  chart. 


THE   CROSS   OF   SNOW 

IN  the  long,  sleepless  watches  of  the  night, 
A  gentle  face  —  the  face  of  one  long  dead  — 
Looks  at  me  from  the  wall,  where  round  its  head 
The  night-lamp  casts  a  halo  of  pale  light. 

Here  in  this  room  she  died;  and  soul  more  white 
Never  through  martyrdom  of  fire  was  led 
To  its  repose;  nor  can  in  books  be  read 
The  legend  of  a  life  more  benedight. 
[    107    ] 


PALINGENESIS 

There  is  a  mountain  in  the  distant  West 
That,  sun-defying,  in  its  deep  ravines 
Displays  a  cross  of  snow  upon  its  side. 

Such  is  the  cross  I  wear  upon  my  breast 

These  eighteen  years,  through  all  the  changing  scenes 
And  seasons,  changeless  since  the  day  she  died. 

PALINGENESIS 

I  LAY  upon  the  headland-height,  and  listened 
To  the  incessant  sobbing  of  the  sea 

In  caverns  under  me, 

And  watched  the  waves,  that  tossed  and  fled  and  glis- 
tened, 
Until  the  rolling  meadows  of  amethyst 

Melted  away  in  mist. 

Then  suddenly,  as  one  from  sleep,  I  started; 
For  round  about  me  all  the  sunny  capes 

Seemed  peopled  with  the  shapes 
Of  those  whom  I  had  known  in  days  departed, 
Apparelled  in  the  loveliness  which  gleams 

On  faces  seen  in  dreams. 

A  moment  only,  and  the  light  and  glory 
Faded  away,  and  the  disconsolate  shore 

Stood  lonely  as  before; 
And  the  wild-roses  of  the  promontory 
Around  me  shuddered  in  the  wind,  and  shed 

Their  petals  of  pale  red. 

[    108    ] 


PALINGENESIS 

There  was  an  old  belief  that  in  the  embers 
Of  all  things  their  primordial  form  exists, 

And  cunning  alchemists 

Could  re-create  the  rose  with  all  its  members 
From  its  own  ashes,  but  without  the  bloom, 

Without  the  lost  perfume. 

Ah  me!  what  wonder-working,  occult  science 
Can  from  the  ashes  in  our  hearts  once  more 

The  rose  of  youth  restore  ? 
What  craft  of  alchemy  can  bid  defiance 
To  time  and  change,  and  for  a  single  hour 

Renew  this  phantom-flower? 

"Oh,  give  me  back,"  I  cried,  "the  vanished  splendors, 
The  breath  of  morn,  and  the  exultant  strife, 

When  the  swift  stream  of  life 
Bounds  o'er  its  rock}7  channel,  and  surrenders 
The  pond,  with  all  its  lilies,  for  the  leap 

Into  the  unknown  deep!" 

And  the  sea  answered,  with  a  lamentation, 
Like  some  old  prophet  wailing,  and  it  said, 

"  Alas !  thy  youth  is  dead ! 
It  breathes  no  more,  its  heart  has  no  pulsation; 
In  the  dark  places  with  the  dead  of  old 

It  lies  forever  cold!" 

Then  said  I,  "From  its  consecrated  cerements 
I  will  not  drag  this  sacred  dust  again, 
Only  to  give  me  pain; 

t    109    ] 


PALINGENESIS 

But,  still  remembering  all  the  lost  endearments, 
Go  on  my  way,  like  one  who  looks  before, 
And  turns  to  weep  no  more." 

Into  what  land  of  harvests,  what  plantations 
Bright  with  autumnal  foliage  and  the  glow 

Of  sunsets  burning  low; 

Beneath  what  midnight  skies,  whose  constellations 
Light  up  the  spacious  avenues  between 

This  world  and  the  unseen; 

Amid  what  friendly  greetings  and  caresses, 
What  households,  though  not  alien,  yet  not  mine, 

What  bowers  of  rest  divine; 
To  what  temptations  in  lone  wildernesses, 
What  famine  of  the  heart,  what  pain  and  loss, 

The  bearing  of  what  cross,  — 

I  do  not  know;  nor  will  I  vainly  question 
Those  pages  of  the  mystic  book  which  hold 

The  story  still  untold, 
But  without  rash  conjecture  or  suggestion 
Turn  its  last  leaves  in  reverence  and  good  heed, 

Until  "The  End  "I  read. 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

POEM     FOR     THE     FIFTIETH     ANNIVERSARY     OF     THE 
CLASS   OF   1825    IN   BOWDOIN   COLLEGE 

"  O  CAESAR,  we  who  are  about  to  die 
Salute  you!"   was  the  gladiators'  cry 
In  the  arena,  standing  face  to  face 
With  death  and  with  the  Roman  populace. 

O  ye  familiar  scenes,  —  ye  groves  of  pine, 
That  once  were  mine  and  are  no  longer  mine,  — 
Thou  river,  widening  through  the  meadows  green 
To  the  vast  sea,  so  near  and  yet  unseen,  — 
Ye  halls,  in  whose  seclusion  and  repose 
Phantoms  of  fame,  like  exhalations,  rose 
And  vanished,  —  we  who  are  about  to  die 
Salute  you;  earth  and  air  and  sea  and  sky, 
And  the  Imperial  Sun  that  scatters  down 
His  sovereign  splendors  upon  grove  and  town. 

Ye  do  not  answer  us!  ye  do  not  hear! 
We  are  forgotten;  and  in  your  austere 
And  calm  indifference,  ye  little  care 
Whether  we  come  or  go,  or  whence  or  where. 
What  passing  generations  fill  these  halls, 
What  passing  voices  echo  from  these  walls, 
Ye  heed  not;  we  are  only  as  the  blast, 
A  moment  heard,  and  then  forever  past. 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

Not  so  the  teachers  who  in  earlier  days 

Led  our  bewildered  feet  through  learning's  maze; 

They  answer  us  —  alas  !  what  have  I  said  ? 

What  greetings  come  there  from  the  voiceless  dead  ? 

What  salutation,  welcome,  or  reply  ? 

What  pressure  from  the  hands  that  lifeless  lie  ? 

They  are  no  longer  here;  they  all  are  gone 

Into  the  land  of  shadows,  —  all  save  one. 

Honor  and  reverence,  and  the  good  repute 

That  follows  faithful  service  as  its  fruit, 

Be  unto  him,  whom  living  we  salute. 

The  great  Italian  poet,  when  he  made 
His  dreadful  journey  to  the  realms  of  shade, 
Met  there  the  old  instructor  of  his  youth, 
And  cried  in  tones  of  pity  and  of  ruth  : 
"  Oh,  never  from  the  memory  of  my  heart 
Your  dear,  paternal  image  shall  depart, 
Who  while  on  earth,  ere  yet  by  death  surprised, 
Taught  me  how  mortals  are  immortalized; 
How  grateful  am  I  for  that  patient  care 
All  my  life  long  my  language  shall  declare." 

To-day  we  make  the  poet's  words  our  own, 

And  utter  them  in  plaintive  undertone; 

Nor  to  the  living  only  be  they  said, 

But  to  the  other  living  called  the  dead, 

Whose  dear,  paternal  images  appear 

Not  wrapped  in  gloom,  but  robed  in  sunshine  here; 


f 


MORITURI    SALUTAMUS 

Whose  simple  lives,  complete  and  without  flaw, 

Were  part  and  parcel  of  great  Nature's  law; 

Who  said  not  to  their  Lord,  as  if  afraid, 
:'Here  is  thy  talent  in  a  napkin  laid," 

But  labored  in  their  sphere,  as  men  who  live 

In  the  delight  that  work  alone  can  give. 

Peace  be  to  them !  eternal  peace  and  rest, 

And  the  fulfilment  of  the  great  behest: 
"Ye  have  been  faithful  over  a  few  things, 

Over  ten  cities  shall  ye  reign  as  kings." 

And  ye  who  fill  the  places  we  once  filled, 
And  follow  in  the  furrows  that  we  tilled, 
Young  men,  whose  generous  hearts  are  beating  high, 
We  who  are  old,  and  are  about  to  die, 
Salute  you;  hail  you;  take  your  hands  in  ours, 
And  crown  you  with  our  welcome  as  with  flowers! 
How  beautiful  is  youth !  how  bright  it  gleams 
With  its  illusions,  aspirations,  dreams ! 
Book  of  Beginnings,  Story  without  End, 
Each  maid  a  heroine,  and  each  man  a  friend! 
Aladdin's  Lamp,  and  Fortunatus'  Purse 
That  holds  the  treasures  of  the  universe! 
All  possibilities  are  in  its  hands, 
No  danger  daunts  it,  and  no  foe  withstands; 
In  its  sublime  audacity  of  faith, 
:<  Be  thou  removed ! "  it  to  the  mountain  saith, 
And  with  ambitious  feet,  secure  and  proud, 
Ascends  the  ladder  leaning  on  the  cloud! 


MORITURI    SALUTAMUS 

As  ancient  Priam  at  the  Scsean  gate 

Sat  on  the  walls  of  Troy  in  regal  state 

With  the  old  men,  too  old  and  weak  to  fight, 

Chirping  like  grasshoppers  in  their  delight 

To  see  the  embattled  hosts,  with  spear  and  shield, 

Of  Trojans  and  Achaians  in  the  field; 

So  from  the  snowy  summits  of  our  years 

We  see  you  in  the  plain,  as  each  appears, 

And  question  of  you ;  asking,  "  Who  is  he 

That  towers  above  the  others  ?    Which  may  be 

Atreides,  Menelaus,  Odysseus, 

Ajax  the  great,  or  bold  Idomeneus  ?  " 

Let  him  not  boast  who  puts  his  armor  on 
As  he  who  puts  it  off,  the  battle  done. 
Study  yourselves;  and  most  of  all  note  well 
Wherein  kind  Nature  meant  you  to  excel. 
Not  every  blossom  ripens  into  fruit; 
Minerva,  the  inventress  of  the  flute, 
Flung  it  aside,  when  she  her  face  surveyed 
Distorted  in  a  fountain  as  she  played; 
The  unlucky  Marsyas  found  it,  and  his  fate 
Was  one  to  make  the  bravest  hesitate. 

Write  on  your  doors  the  saying  wise  and  old, 
'Be  bold!  be  bold!"  and  everywhere,  "Be  bold; 
Be  not  too  bold ! "    Yet  better  the  excess 
Than  the  defect;  better  the  more  than  less; 
Better  like  Hector  in  the  field  to  die, 
Than  like  a  perfumed  Paris  turn  and  fly. 
[    "4    ] 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

And  now,  my  classmates;  ye  remaining  few 
That  number  not  the  hah*  of  those  we  knew, 
Ye,  against  whose  familiar  names  not  yet 
The  fatal  asterisk  of  death  is  set, 
Ye  I  salute!   The  horologe  of  Time 
Strikes  the  half-century  with  a  solemn  chime, 
And  summons  us  together  once  again, 
The  joy  of  meeting  not  unmixed  with  pain. 

Where  are  the  others  ?   Voices  from  the  deep 

Caverns  of  darkness  answer  me :  "  They  sleep ! " 

I  name  no  names;  instinctively  I  feel 

Each  at  some  well-remembered  grave  will  kneel, 

And  from  the  inscription  wipe  the  weeds  and  moss, 

For  every  heart  best  knoweth  its  own  loss. 

I  see  their  scattered  gravestones  gleaming  white 

Through  the  pale  dusk  of  the  impending  night; 

O'er  all  alike  the  impartial  sunset  throws 

Its  golden  lilies  mingled  with  the  rose; 

We  give  to  each  a  tender  thought,  and  pass 

Out  of  the  graveyards  with  their  tangled  grass, 

Unto  these  scenes  frequented  by  our  feet 

When  we  were  young,  and  life  was  fresh  and  sweet. 

What  shall  I  say  to  you  ?    What  can  I  say 
Better  than  silence  is  ?    When  I  survey 
This  throng  of  faces  turned  to  meet  my  own, 
Friendly  and  fair,  and  yet  to  me  unknown, 
Transformed  the  very  landscape  seems  to  be; 
It  is  the  same,  yet  not  the  same  to  me. 


MORITURI    SALUTAMUS 

So  many  memories  crowd  upon  my  brain, 
So  many  ghosts  are  in  the  wooded  plain, 
I  fain  would  steal  away,  with  noiseless  tread, 
As  from  a  house  where  some  one  lieth  dead. 
I  cannot  go ;  —  I  pause ;  —  I  hesitate ; 
My  feet  reluctant  linger  at  the  gate; 
As  one  who  struggles  in  a  troubled  dream 
To  speak  and  cannot,  to  myself  I  seem. 

Vanish  the  dream!   Vanish  the  idle  fears! 

Vanish  the  rolling  mists  of  fifty  years ! 

Whatever  time  or  space  may  intervene, 

I  will  not  be  a  stranger  in  this  scene. 

Here  every  doubt,  all  indecision,  ends; 

Hail,  my  companions,  comrades,  classmates,  friends ! 

Ah  me!  the  fifty  years  since  last  we  met 
Seem  to  me  fifty  folios  bound  and  set 
By  Time,  the  great  transcriber,  on  his  shelves, 
Wherein  are  written  the  histories  of  ourselves. 
What  tragedies,  what  comedies,  are  there; 
What  joy  and  grief,  what  rapture  and  despair! 
What  chronicles  of  triumph  and  defeat, 
Of  struggle,  and  temptation,  and  retreat! 
What  records  of  regrets,  and  doubts,  and  fears! 
What  pages  blotted,  blistered  by  our  tears ! 
What  lovely  landscapes  on  the  margin  shine, 
What  sweet,  angelic  faces,  what  divine 
And  holy  images  of  love  and  trust, 
Undimmed  by  age,  unsoiled  by  damp  or  dust! 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

Whose  hand  shall  dare  to  open  and  explore 
These  volumes,  closed  and  clasped  forevennore  ? 
Not  mine.    With  reverential  feet  I  pass; 
I  hear  a  voice  that  cries,  "  Alas !  alas ! 
Whatever  hath  been  written  shall  remain, 
Nor  be  erased  nor  written  o'er  again; 
The  unwritten  only  still  belongs  to  thee: 
Take  heed,  and  ponder  well  what  that  shall  be." 

As  children  frightened  by  a  thunder-cloud 

Are  reassured  if  some  one  reads  aloud 

A  tale  of  wonder,  with  enchantment  fraught, 

Or  wild  adventure,  that  diverts  their  thought, 

Let  me  endeavor  with  a  tale  to  chase 

The  gathering  shadows  of  the  time  and  place, 

And  banish  what  we  all  too  deeply  feel 

Wholly  to  say,  or  wholly  to  conceal. 

In  mediaeval  Rome,  I  know  not  where, 
There  stood  an  image  with  its  arm  in  air, 
And  on  its  lifted  finger,  shining  clear, 
A  golden  ring  with  the  device,  "  Strike  here ! " 
Greatly  the  people  wondered,  though  none  guessed 
The  meaning  that  these  words  but  half  expressed, 
Until  a  learned  clerk,  who  at  noonday 
With  downcast  eye  was  passing  on  his  way, 
Paused,  and  observed  the  spot,  and  marked  it  well, 
Whereon  the  shadow  of  the  finger  fell; 
And,  coming  back  at  midnight,  delved,  and  found 
A  secret  stairway  leading  under  ground. 
[    117    ] 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

Down  this  he  passed  into  a  spacious  hall, 

Lit  by  a  flaming  jewel  on  the  wall; 

And  opposite,  in  threatening  attitude, 

With  bow  and  shaft  a  brazen  statue  stood. 

Upon  its  forehead,  like  a  coronet, 

Were  these  mysterious  words  of  menace  set: 

That  which  I  am,  I  am;  my  fatal  aim 

None  can  escape,  not  even  yon  luminous  flame!" 

Midway  the  hall  was  a  fair  table  placed, 

With  cloth  of  gold,  and  golden  cups  enchased 

With  rubies,  and  the  plates  and  knives  were  gold, 

And  gold  the  bread  and  viands  manifold. 

Around  it,  silent,  motionless,  and  sad, 

Were  seated  gallant  knights  in  armor  clad, 

And  ladies  beautiful  with  plume  and  zone, 

But  they  were  stone,  their  hearts  within  were  stone; 

And  the  vast  hall  was  filled  in  every  part 

With  silent  crowds,  stony  in  face  and  heart. 

Long  at  the  scene,  bewildered  and  amazed, 
The  trembling  clerk  in  speechless  wonder  gazed ; 
Then  from  the  table,  by  his  greed  made  bold, 
He  seized  a  goblet  and  a  knife  of  gold, 
And  suddenly  from  their  seats  the  guests  upsprang, 
The  vaulted  ceiling  with  loud  clamors  rang, 
The  archer  sped  his  arrow,  at  their  call, 
Shattering  the  lambent  jewel  on  the  wall, 
And  all  was  dark  around  and  overhead ;  — 
Stark  on  the  floor  the  luckless  clerk  lay  dead! 
[    118    ] 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

The  writer  of  this  legend  then  records 
Its  ghostly  application  in  these  words: 
The  image  is  the  Adversary  old, 
Whose  beckoning  finger  points  to  realms  of  gold; 
Our  lusts  and  passions  are  the  downward  stair 
That  leads  the  soul  from  a  diviner  air; 
The  archer,  Death;  the  flaming  jewel,  Life; 
Terrestrial  goods,  the  goblet  and  the  knife; 
The  knights  and  ladies,  all  whose  flesh  and  bone 
By  avarice  have  been  hardened  into  stone; 
The  clerk,  the  scholar  whom  the  love  of  pelf 
Tempts  from  his  books  and  from  his  nobler  self. 

The  scholar  and  the  world!   The  endless  strife, 

The  discord  in  the  harmonies  of  life! 

The  love  of  learning,  the  sequestered  nooks, 

And  all  the  sweet  serenity  of  books! 

The  market-place,  the  eager  love  of  gain, 

Whose  aim  is  vanity,  and  whose  end  is  pain! 

But  why,  you  ask  me,  should  this  tale  be  told 
To  men  grown  old,  or  who  are  growing  old  ? 
It  is  too  late!   Ah,  nothing  is  too  late 
Till  the  tired  heart  shall  cease  to  palpitate. 
Cato  learned  Greek  at  eighty;  Sophocles 
Wrote  his  grand  (Edipus,  and  Simonides 
Bore  off  the  prize  of  verse  from  his  compeers, 
When  each  had  numbered  more  than  fourscore  years, 
And  Theophrastus  at  fourscore  and  ten, 
Had  but  begun  his  Characters  of  Men. 
[    119    ] 


MORITURI   SALUTAMUS 

Chaucer,  at  Woodstock  with  the  nightingales, 
At  sixty  wrote  the  Canterbury  Tales; 
Goethe  at  Weimar,  toiling  to  the  last, 
Completed  Faust  when  eighty  years  were  past. 
These  are  indeed  exceptions;  but  they  show 
How  far  the  gulf-stream  of  our  youth  may  flow 
Into  the  arctic  regions  of  our  lives, 
Where  little  else  than  life  itself  survives. 

As  the  barometer  foretells  the  storm 

While  still  the  skies  are  clear,  the  weather  warm, 

So  something  in  us,  as  old  age  draws  near, 

Betrays  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere. 

The  nimble  mercury,  ere  we  are  aware, 

Descends  the  elastic  ladder  of  the  air; 

The  telltale  blood  in  artery  and  vein 

Sinks  from  its  higher  levels  in  the  brain; 

Whatever  poet,  orator,  or  sage 

May  say  of  it,  old  age  is  still  old  age. 

It  is  the  waning,  not  the  crescent  moon; 

The  dusk  of  evening,  not  the  blaze  of  noon; 

It  is  not  strength,  but  weakness;  not  desire, 

But  its  surcease ;  not  the  fierce  heat  of  fire, 

The  burning  and  consuming  element, 

But  that  of  ashes  and  of  embers  spent, 

In  which  some  living  sparks  we  still  discern, 

Enough  to  warm,  but  not  enough  to  burn. 

What  then  ?   Shall  we  sit  idly  down  and  say 
The  night  hath  come ;  it  is  no  longer  day  ? 
[     120    ] 


MORITURI  SALUTAMUS 

The  night  hath  not  yet  come;  we  are  not  quite 
Cut  off  from  labor  by  the  failing  light; 
Something  remains  for  us  to  do  or  dare; 
Even  the  oldest  tree  some  fruit  may  bear; 
Not  CEdipus  Coloneus,  or  Greek  Ode, 
Or  tales  of  pilgrims  that  one  morning  rode 
Out  of  the  gateway  of  the  Tabard  Inn, 
But  other  something,  would  we  but  begin; 
For  age  is  opportunity,  no  less 
Than  youth  itself,  though  in  another  dress, 
And  as  the  evening  twilight  fades  away 
The  sky  is  filled  with  stars,  invisible  by  day. 


Electrotype*  and  printed  by  H,  O.  Houghton  &•  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass,  U.  S.  A. 


